Two Days - A Sequel to An Odd Couple
by KaltimusPrime
Summary: An unofficial (but endorsed!) sequel to "An Odd Couple" by WeaponFanfic. Elisabeth "Sissi" Delmas and Odd Della Robia have been dating for a few weeks, and questions are finally being asked. As Sissi begins to be drawn into the world of the Lyoko Warriors, she'll have to balance her fear of the unknown against keeping her newfound friends...as XANA plays a deadly game once again...
1. Introduction

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 **Two Days**

Sequel to "An Odd Couple", a Code Lyoko Fanfic

"An Odd Couple" written by WeaponFanfic

"Two Days" written by KaltimusPrime

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Author's Note (A/N): Welcome! This story is based off the world created by another fanfiction, written by author WeaponFanfic, titled "An Odd Couple". I was inspired to write this after reading WeaponFanfic's story, and wrote out the original full-length draft in its entirety. Once it was complete, I realized I wasn't quite sure where to go from there; playing in another author's world can be touchy business. However, after contacting WeaponFanfic and sending him the treatment of the story, he graciously and wholeheartedly endorsed my publishing of it here as an unofficial sequel to his original story (and if need be, I have the messages to prove it - I'm very grateful!)

As an unofficial sequel to "An Odd Couple", events from that story are important to this one. Characterizations in this narrative are based off those developed in the original, and that story is absolutely required reading to understand this one; "An Odd Couple" is an enjoyable read and easily completed in a single sitting for a Code Lyoko fan, so go give it a look beforehand! I have placed "An Odd Couple" at an undetermined time during Code Lyoko's fourth season, after the development of the Skidbladnir and the discovery of Replikas, but before the events of the episode "Lab Rat" and thus before the development of "translation" into the real world. This story follows shortly thereafter in that timespan.

This story is _not_ intended to conflict with or overwrite WeaponFanfic's own continuity; it is rather an AU of an AU; a what-if story, which depending on circumstances may see future installments. Following WeaponFanfic's suggestions, I am touching up the original draft into this finalized version, which will be published here on a **weekly** basis; subscribe to the story for instant notice when the newest chapter (or chapter **s** ; sometimes it'll be more than one) arrives! Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy it!

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	2. Chapter 1

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1

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"So, did you want to do anything today?"

"Mm?"

"I asked if you wanted to do anything?"

Elisabeth "Sissi" Delmas offered a small sound of contentment as she snuggled against her boyfriend a bit tighter. "I'm alright with this for now."

Next to her, Odd Della Robbia responded with a gentle squeeze of his girlfriend's hand and a slight tightening of the embrace he had her wrapped in. The two were laying back on Odd's bed in the room he shared with Ulrich in the Kadic dormitories. When Sissi had shown up unannounced a half hour or so beforehand, he'd been worried at first that something might be wrong. Thus far, she hadn't said anything along those lines; once Ulrich had politely excused himself to give the two space, Sissi had simply asked if they could snuggle, and Odd certainly wasn't going to turn it down. So, here they'd been since.

Odd felt a small, hesitant tensing in his girlfriend, before she spoke. "I had a bad dream last night."

"About what?"

"It's hard to remember all of it…but I know it ended with you getting hurt. I've had dreams like that a couple of times recently." She tilted her head to look up from her resting spot on his chest, her eyes meeting his. "I know you're adventurous and all, but you don't do dangerous stuff…right?"

Odd felt a small lump catch in his throat. It was a simple enough question, and he knew the answer he was supposed to be giving. He and Sissi had only been together for two weeks now, and had tried to spend a good amount of time together. He'd been lucky thus far in that there had only been three XANA attacks in that time, and in all cases the group had been able to contain effects quickly enough to avoid Returns to the Past. His habit of bouncing from girl-to-girl hadn't really prepared him to grasp the long-term effects of a steady relationship as a virtual warrior with oodles of secrets to keep. And though he'd been able to play off any issues so far, suddenly he now found the concept of lying to Sissi very, very unpleasant.

Sissi clearly noticed the pause, even if it was really only a momentary one. Her gaze became more concerned, though not angry. "There _is_ something, isn't there?"

Odd looked away slightly. "It's not…I mean, I don't go for the super dangerous stuff. I don't do skydiving or skateboarding in traffic or anything like that."

"But there _is_ something." Her voice was a little firmer this time.

"…yeah."

Sissi took a moment to think, resting her head back on his chest. "Is there a reason you can't tell me? A good one?"

Odd let out a low breath. "Yes…and…well no, but yes, but it's a dumb…well, no, it's a good reason, but I don't like not saying…" He slowly withdrew his arms and sat up, slowly enough to let Sissi rise with him. She sat up straight, giving him a little space as he swung his feet off the bed and hunched forward a bit; as she watched his face, she saw the serious lines in it and the tight focus that showed how deep in thought he was.

It was hard to believe that just a few weeks ago, she'd almost completely hated Odd right to his core. Him and his stupid group of friends. They'd constantly taken verbal potshots at each other, and enjoyed watching the other go through all sorts of humiliations over the years they'd known each other at school. Then a short amount of time accidentally meeting in the school's online chatroom had let them talk at length, without even knowing who they were each talking to. He'd been open, caring, and vulnerable; she'd been sympathetic, gentle, and equally exposed.

When they'd agreed to meet and had realized who was who, they'd both first reacted with anger, then betrayal, then suddenly passion, and the dating had begun. It had been rocky at first; secrets and dodging his friends and her friends alike. She'd even called it off for a couple days, but he'd managed to undo both the nervousness and the secrecy with one big, bold, incredibly dumb yet brave move in announcing their relationship to the entire cafeteria during lunch. With that kind of devotion, she couldn't help being swept back in, and gladly so.

Since then, there'd been a couple small issues. Her father had given Odd over a month's detention for the stunt, though after seeing how much brighter she seemed in the aftermath, he'd trimmed it to a week. Her own friends had needed some adjusting time. Nikolas had come around the quickest; at first he'd been incredulous, but soon he realized that she had become on the whole more pleasant to be around, so he'd accepted and congratulated her. Herve had been mostly quiet on the other hand; she knew he carried a torch for her, but she'd never felt the same way, and had to turn him down. She hoped he'd be able to understand with more time.

From Odd's side of the social stratum though, she'd experienced nothing but total acceptance. Aelita and Jeremie had congratulated the two, and even had revealed themselves as lead members of the online chat where Odd and Sissi had inadvertently been acquainted; it was a huge surprise for Sissi to find out that Aelita of all people had been one of her best friends online going back several months. Ulrich and Yumi were on speaking terms with her, and she'd even been invited out shopping with Yumi and Aelita that past weekend; the amount of laughter and silliness that had ensued while trying on ridiculous outfits left her wondering how she'd gotten by with almost no female friends for so long. The group was wholly supportive of her and Odd, and she'd done her best to try and make up for her past actions, even as the group apologized for their side of things.

But certainly the biggest change had been learning more about Odd and who he really was. For all his laughter and jokes and cheeseball antics, Odd had a lot more depth than she'd ever really seen before. He had a great love of music to match hers, and a creative mind that could come up with intricate narratives holding much more complexity than the superhero comics he often read. More than anything, she'd been surprised by his enormous heart; when his brash exterior faded away, Odd was tender, thoughtful, and very devoted to her, often finding ways to ask just the right questions or give just the right answers. More than anything, he seemed to want to make her happy, but she'd made it clear that the line was drawn at any kind of self-sacrifice for the sake of her happiness.

That was why she hadn't asked questions or poked and prodded when he had to abruptly call off a meetup a week and a half earlier due to an "emergency", and why she hadn't poked him about seeing him and Jeremie vanishing into the woods around Kadic a few days before. She'd long suspected that there was something strange about the group of five, and although she'd been welcomed in, she always wondered how far that might extend. But she also hadn't wanted to stress Odd, so she'd kept it pushed back in her mind. Unfortunately, that had just led to her worried mind coming up with all sorts of disturbing scenarios in her dreams, almost all of them ending up with Odd hurt somehow. The previous night's dream had even ended with a vision of Odd disintegrating; she'd woken up crying, and the image had stayed with her and left her distraught right up until she was in his arms again.

Odd took a long breath, and Sissi was pulled back to the present, watching him run his hands over his face until he was resting his forehead on them.

"There are things I do…that aren't safe." He said. "I guess a lot of them. But it's not as simple as just…saying it all, or swearing off it. It's not me wanting to make you worried, or not wanting to tell you, or not trusting you or anything…there's just…arg, it's so complicated." Odd looked up from his hands, staring at the far wall, clearly trying to figure out what to say.

Sissi took a long breath herself, muddling through her own thoughts before speaking. "Does it have to do with the group?"

Odd didn't look back, but he did close his eyes. "Yeah. It's something we all deal with admittedly." For a moment, his voice became a slightly bitter tone she wasn't familiar with from him at all. "A big freaking stupid secret…"

"And you can't tell me?" Her voice was small; she was trying to not harass him, but she couldn't help feeling a little hurt by not being included.

Odd turned back to her, looking at her intently. His eyes met hers again, and she saw all the conflict in them for the first time; he absolutely wanted to spill everything right that instant, whatever it was. She met his gaze, and he saw the vulnerability in it again; if he told her nothing, she'd try to understand and accept it, but it would always be there until it was touched on, and the longer it went unsaid, the longer the pain and worry would continue, and the worse the feeling of not being trusted would fester.

He looked away slightly again, then stood up from the bed, hands clenched, and Sissi could tell he'd steeled himself for a difficult decision.

"I'm going to talk to the others tonight about it."

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	3. Chapter 2

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2

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"And…so yeah, that's my pitch I guess."

Odd felt sheepish at his lame finish. Outside the windows, it was almost dark; though the spring weather of early April meant the days were getting longer, it still meant that in a few minutes by eight 'o'clock it would be completely nighttime. He was sitting in Jeremie's room, surrounded by his friends. Aelita was standing next to Jeremie, who had turned his chair away from his laptop to focus on the conversation. Ulrich and Yumi were sitting on Jeremie's bed; Yumi had a hand over Ulrich's. All four had listened as he'd made his case, letting him ramble to get all of it out.

Now there was an awkward silence. Each of his friends looked to each other, eyes meeting and silent contacts being made, like everyone was communicating without a word being spoken. The bond between these five was strong enough that they could almost always tell what the others were thinking.

Then Aelita spoke. "I think we'll have to tell her."

Odd did a double take. _Almost always!_ "Are you sure?" he asked.

She looked to him, a small smile on her face. "Wasn't it your idea in the first place Odd?"

"Well, yeah, but I didn't expect…"

Aelita held up a finger, continuing. "Keep in mind, I started talking to Sissi before any of you really did, at least outside of our daily interactions. I've had a lot of time to get a read on what kind of person she is at heart."

Next to her, Jeremie looked contemplative. "Admittedly I've been thinking the same thing for a while now. We've been pretty lucky thus far in terms of this whole secret and relationships."

"Just don't make any 'keeping it in the family' jokes, Jeremie." Yumi added, a wry grin on her face.

Jeremie grinned a bit in return. But he certainly had the point; he and Aelita had, of course, hit it off, and Yumi and Ulrich had finally gotten through their own unresolved romantic tension not long before Odd had started seeing Sissi. So, thus far, relationships forming had not threatened to spread the secret.

Yumi looked to Odd, her grin fading into a somewhat embarrassed look. "Admittedly, we never really discussed it as a group when it came to your dating life, because you were always bouncing from one girl to another, so it didn't seem like it would be an issue."

Odd winced a bit and put a hand over his heart. "Oww, Yumi, from China's heart doth you stab at me!" He then quickly ducked the thick math textbook book she'd grabbed off Jeremie's shelf and nonchalantly thrown at him in response to the joke; in truth he knew it was probably more out of the deliberate swapping of her Japanese nationality than the terrible pun.

Ulrich sat looking at the floor, clearly deep in thought. The others looked to him, and Odd held his breath a bit; of them all, Ulrich certainly had the most experience with Sissi, and certainly the most reason to distrust her.

Finally, Ulrich spoke up.

"If we're going to do this, we're going to have to be careful how we go about it. This secret is certainly bigger than any of us, but we can't tell half a truth and half a lie. If we tell her, we'll have to tell her all of it, or she'll never get it." He looked up at Odd, his gaze firm. "And if she doesn't react well, or it goes badly, you know we'll have to wipe everything. We can't risk what's happened the last time that she found out, even with what's changed between then and now between you and her."

Odd looked down and nodded slowly; he'd almost forgotten that she'd actually found out before, though Return to the Past had undone that. "Yeah…I know that if it doesn't work out…it's…not really a good sign for our relationship." He looked back up at them. "I don't like the idea of having to relive days and redo things with her over and over to hide it from her. But I can't lie to her either; it doesn't feel right at all, even though we're so used to lying to almost everyone."

The rest of the group seemed to give an uncomfortable shudder at that; the fact that they weren't far off from being child soldiers fighting a secret war, and had been for years, wasn't lost on any of them. All of them had become exceedingly good liars. Until the dam had broken and the hookups between each of them had started happening all at once, they hadn't quite realized that they'd even become adept at lying to themselves and each other about their own feelings. The result was that the group had suddenly become even more tightly knit in the last handful of weeks than they'd ever been, which was saying an awful lot after so much time together.

Jeremie spoke up. "So then. All in favor of bringing Sissi into this story?" He raised his hand. Aelita raised hers, as did Odd. Yumi thought for only a moment, before hers went up as well; a strong endorsement coming from her.

Ulrich looked around to the others, then to Odd. "Do you trust her?"

Odd nodded. "Yes."

Ulrich raised his hand too.

"It's unanimous then." Jeremie said, as they all put their hands down. "So, when do we do it?"

Aelita pulled a phone out of her pocket, tapping at it. "Sunday. Tomorrow."

Ulrich looked up, surprised. "That's pretty soon. Will we be ready by then?"

Aelita hit another key and a small 'ding' sounded. "Well, I just texted her asking her to meet us near the bench at the nature trail tomorrow at noon." Her answer was firm and decisive.

Ulrich looked to Jeremie. "Well then. Guess we'll have to be ready by then."

Jeremie nodded, turning back to his computer and turning it on. "Well, we'd better get started on what we're going to say then."

The group began to offer suggestions, each chiming in with phrases or corrections, advice and guidelines.

Odd watched as his friends put their honest effort into the process, and once again, he felt enormous gratitude for the friends he'd made on this wild adventure.

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That evening, after everyone had finally gone to sleep, sometime past three in the morning, something stirred on Lyoko...


	4. Chapter 3

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3

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Sissi fidgeted with her shoulderbag nervously. She'd seen Aelita's text message that morning and had rushed through getting cleaned up and dressed. She'd been so focused on getting there on time that she'd actually arrived almost an hour early, and had now been sitting on the bench that sat along the park trail for most of that time.

Aelita's text had said to wear functional attire and bring some kind of transportation. Sissi had been a little confused by that, but she'd left behind her usual heart-shirt-skirt-and-heels combo for jeans and a pink midriff-baring shirt and sneakers. Her yellow hairband kept her hair back as usual, but she'd forgone the usual gold hoop earrings just in case "functional attire" meant not to have dangly bits around.

In the same vein, she'd left her purse behind and brought a sturdy shoulder bag emptied of schoolbooks and notepads and filled instead with whatever she could think of as useful in different situations. It occurred to her that she was probably being silly and overthinking things, but between Odd's reactions the day before, Aelita's text, and her own nervous musings over time, something told her it was better to be safe than sorry.

Sissi checked her small black watch again; it was eleven fifty-nine. She hadn't seen anyone come by yet; students usually didn't use the nature trail except on class days, and even then most preferred to be indoors on computers or with friends. Most likely at this time on a Sunday, most of the other school kids would be asleep.

She pulled her legs up to her chest and rocked back on the bench, tilting her head back to look up at the trees and letting her thoughts roam again. That morning after getting the text, she'd been so excited and eager to find out what was going on. Now she felt an enormous wave of nervousness, like something huge was about to happen. Why, she couldn't figure out. But the feeling remained.

"Lizzy!"

Sissi turned her head at the voice; Aelita was coming up the path from school, wearing her usual casual dress and boots.

Sissi put her feet back down and smiled as the girl came up to the bench. "Morning, Ann."

Both girls giggled; the nicknames were plays on the online handles they'd known each other by for months before really getting acquainted in real life.

Aelita motioned to the bench. "Is it alright if I sit down?"

"Yeah, of course! You're the one who messaged me, after all."

Aelita sat down, smoothing out her dress and looking Sissi's outfit over. There was a short silence, and Sissi noticed a somewhat odd look on Aelita's face. "W-What is it? Are the clothes not right for whatever this is?"

Aelita quickly shook her head. "No, they're perfectly fine! Just a little ironic I suppose in a way." _It's the outfit she wore the last time she found out, save for the headband…ironic indeed._

Sissi tilted her head. "I don't understand."

"You will, eventually."

They sat in silence for another minute. Sissi checked her watch again, fidgeting. Aelita looked to her, seeming to study her.

"Odd made quite the strong case to us last night, you know." She finally said. "I know I said it when we went shopping last week, but I'm still amazed how devoted he is to making you happy."

Sissi blushed, looking away a bit. "I was as shocked as anyone. Both about him caring about me, and about me caring about him…" She gave a small ironic laugh. "If you'd try to tell me a couple months ago that I'd have ended up with that bozo, I'd have thought you came from another planet."

Aelita smiled. "I'm happy it's worked out for you both so far. It's nice to see him so happy."

"Admittedly, I kind of thought you might be a little jealous. I guess it'd sound silly now, but for a while I'd almost pegged you and him as a possible thing."

"Oh goodness no! Odd's like a brother to me, I'd never be able to see that. Besides…" Aelita trailed off briefly, before looking into the distance and finishing firmly, "Jeremie will always be the only one for me."

Sissi looked to her, watching Aelita's face, feeling the strength of the statement, and again she wondered what it was that had happened between Jeremie and Aelita to cause such devotion to each other, though especially from her. It was rather like a princess who had wholly devoted herself to her knight in shining armor; a mental image that didn't seem to fit the skinny, nerdy Jeremie Belpois at all.

Aelita looked away down the path again. "Here come the others." She stood up, and Sissi stood as well; indeed, Jeremie was coming, followed by Ulrich and Odd.

Odd moved close to Sissi as they arrived, pulling her into a warm hug and a brief but warm kiss, before moving to stand next to her. "Thank you for coming, Sissi." She nodded in return, the nervousness starting to return.

Aelita looked to Jeremie. "Where's Yumi?"

Ulrich answered. "She's meeting us there; it's quicker from her place."

 _Her place?_ Sissi wondered. "A-Are we going somewhere?"

"Yeah, we are." Odd answered. He nodded to the others and they set off as a group, moving away from the bench and off the nature trail entirely. They moved through the trees, and soon they were deep into the occasionally thick woods of the forest. Sissi kept pace with the others, astounded at the way that they seemed to know the place so well; Jeremie, Ulrich, Odd, and even Aelita never slowed as they moved in and out of the trees and brush, not seeming to follow any visible trail. She found herself grateful she'd worn the outfit she had, as her short skirt and heels would not have agreed with this kind of travel at all; somehow Aelita's dress seemed completely unaffected by the growth.

Eventually the group came to a small clearing. In the middle of it was a small stone rise with a sewer manhole cover set into it. Ulrich climbed on and began to twist the manhole cover off, and Sissi hesitated slightly.

"We're going into the sewers?" Her brain started reminding her that such places usually stank something fierce and weren't very healthy at all.

Odd replied to her question. "It's an old water main actually. There's still water running through it, but no sewage in this part." He grinned. "So don't worry, you won't smell like poo afterwards."

Sissi gave him a look and a small shove in response, as Ulrich got the manhole cover off and put it aside. Jeremie climbed up and crouched down, sliding into the hole; Aelita soon followed him, and then Ulrich. Odd brought Sissi up to the open entrance; she now saw that there was a metal ladder leading down.

Odd motioned. "Ladies first."

"R-Right…" Sissi took a deep breath and steeled herself, then crouched down and stepped onto the ladder, starting down. It was long, and the rungs were round and smooth, so she had to take care descending. Above her, Odd started down, pulling the manhole cover over the top.

For a moment they were in almost complete darkness, before descending into a well-lit and enormous cylindrical pipe. Sissi gasped, not having quite expected the size of it; the tunnel was enormous, with stone paths running along both sides of a wide waterway, which flowed gently but with great volume. As she reached the bottom, she saw the others waiting by a line of wheeled vehicles leaning against a wall of the tunnel; Aelita and Jeremie were each unfolding standup scooters, while Ulrich picked up a skateboard. As Odd hit the bottom of the ladder, he grabbed the other skateboard waiting.

Aelita looked to Sissi. "Did you bring something for moving with like I said?"

"Huh? Oh, y-yeah." Sissi pulled her gaze away from the enormous tunnel to dig through her shoulder bag, pulling out a set of rollerblades and swapping them for her sneakers. Odd steadied her as she donned them and stowed the sneakers away. "Okay, I'm all set here."

Ulrich nodded, then turned and abruptly threw his skateboard onto the ground and leapt on, suddenly rocketing away at speed along the stone path. Odd grinned and ran after him, shouting. "Hey, wait up!" He threw his own board down and zoomed off similarly.

Jeremie shook his head and started off after them on his scooter, trying to keep up. Aelita simply sighed. "Boys." She looked back at Sissi. "Follow us." Then she set off too at surprising speed on her own scooter.

Sissi took a moment to get used to her blades again, before following the group as best she could. Ulrich and Odd were already far ahead, though Jeremie and Aelita occasionally slowed just enough to check on her, and soon she was keeping pace with the two on her rollerblades. The stone path and waterway sped by, curving here and there.

After a minute, Aelita called out to her over the rushing wind and wheels. "Stairs coming up!" Sissi gave her a surprised look and slowed up a bit, looking ahead; indeed, Ulrich had just popped his board up over a railing ahead, with Odd grinding the railing right after him. Soon Jeremie had reached it; suddenly _he_ had jumped his scooter up and was grinding down the railing and out of sight. Next went Aelita, almost precisely mirroring Jeremie's move; Sissi was stunned either one of them could do it, and the fact that all four had done the move like pros with years of practice threw her off briefly.

 _Okay then, if I need to keep up with them…let's try it!_ Sissi quickly picked up speed, heading straight for the railing, and at the last second she leapt and turned her feet sideways, starting to grind down the railing on the rollerblades. She almost cheered, but abruptly one of the wheels caught a bump somewhere in the railing and without warning she was pitched forward sharply with a yelp.

On pure instinct, her hands landed palms-out on the railing and she stiffened her arms, planting them as her feet went over her head, before pushing off again; another second later and she was upright and her wheels had landed hard on the pavement, making her skid shakily and unsteadily, flailing her arms as she started to topple forward. Before she could fall though, strong arms reached out and steadied her; the others had held back and Odd had his arms around her, spinning them both around once on the spot to let her momentum carry out as he brought her to a stop.

"Holy crap, Sissi, I didn't know you could do that! That was awesome!" He looked for all the world like a kid who had just watched the Olympics for the first time. Jeremie, Ulrich, and Aelita looked just as surprised.

" ** _I_** didn't know I could do that!" Sissi responded breathlessly, still processing what had happened. "I mean, I took some gymnastics when I was younger, but I haven't done anything like that since seventh grade!" She looked back at the railing, feeling a surge of pride rush through her. _Oh yeah! I can totally keep up with these guys, whatever we're headed into!_

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	5. Chapter 4

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4

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It was ten minutes later when the group reached what was apparently the end of the line; metal bars blocked the path ahead, and another access ladder stretched down from above. Sissi climbed the ladder with the group, following after Odd. As they emerged back into the sunlight, she squinted a bit and sat down to switch back to her sneakers while her eyes adjusted. Once they had, she saw a hand reaching down; Yumi was standing over her. Sissi grasped the hand and the older girl pulled her up, giving her a thumbs-up, before turning to look away.

Sissi followed her gaze, and took in for the first time where she was. The group was standing at one end of a long suspension bridge. Behind them was Boulogne-Billancourt, one of the suburbs of greater Paris; she knew Yumi lived there. But ahead of them, at the far end of the bridge, was an enormous run down factory building, sitting on a long island in the middle of the River Seine. The building had windows blown out in some places, or grimed over in others; it was dirty and looked as if it hadn't been touched in years.

The group was moving ahead; Yumi motioned for Sissi to follow her. With only a little hesitation, Sissi followed as they made their way across the bridge.

"What is that place?"

"The old Renault factory." Yumi answered as they walked. "They used to make the brand cars there, but it closed down a long time ago for unknown reasons." She glanced at Sissi. "Though we have a few theories."

Before Sissi could ask about them, they'd reached the other side, and Odd and Ulrich were rolling up the enormous metal overhead door on the place. She moved into the old building with the others, taking in the sight. The main room was enormous, with skylights and missing roof pieces overhead, and rusted metal and machinery scattered along the edges, though the main floor was mostly clear and smooth. Sissi shivered a bit; the place was haunting to say the least, and with the broken catwalks she could see dangling in spots, it certainly wouldn't meet any kind of work safety regulations.

The path they were following jutted out into one such walkway; chains hung down from somewhere above haphazardly, and whatever stairs had once been attached to the catwalk had apparently collapsed at some point. But to her surprise, both Ulrich and Odd were already out of sight; a moment later she saw them down on the floor far below. She was about to ask how they'd gotten down there, but then she saw Jeremie run for one of the chains and leap onto it, swinging smoothly down to the floor like a Tarzan movie with less yelling; Aelita had soon followed him in similar fashion.

Sissi felt her mouth hanging open a bit, and Yumi smirked. "Think you can do it?" The voice held a challenge, and something else Sissi couldn't identify.

"I didn't come this far to stop now." Sissi said, steeling herself, before running at one of the chains. At the last second though, she hesitated, and instead of leaping off the edge, she stumbled and toppled forward, grabbing wildly for it. She heard Odd yell somewhere below, and she twisted in the air, managing to grab the chain with both hands; she quickly wrapped her legs around it for good measure, holding on as it swung wildly.

Aelita called something out, but the pounding in Sissi's ears was too loud to hear, so she waited for the swinging chain to come to a stop, then carefully slid down it to the bottom. Odd was waiting there for her, and quickly pulled her into a comforting hug, gently working the chain out of her grasp.

"Are you okay?"

"Y-Yeah…I just tripped…"

"Anything hurt at all?" Odd's voice was tight with worry; he'd clearly had a bad fright when her fall began.

Sissi shook her head again. Aelita and the others had come over now; Yumi had appeared with them from above, and she came right up to the two, looking concerned. "I'm sorry Sissi, I should have realized you might not be ready for that yet."

"No, it's not your fault. I'm the dumb idiot who went for it." Sissi looked out at the rest of the group. "I needed to try and keep up with you all, for whatever all of this is."

They all looked at each other, and she had the distinct feeling conversations were shooting back and forth in the looks they each gave each other. Whether or not that was good for her or not, she wasn't sure.

But Odd finally grinned at her. "Well, just so you know in the future, there's stairs. That's how Yumi got down." He pointed past Sissi's head; indeed, a set of metal stairs led down from above.

"Wha…then why did everyone use the chains?!" Sissi exclaimed.

Odd shrugged. "I dunno. Rule of Cool?"

Sissi growled and gave her boyfriend a smack on the back of his head.

"Ow!"

"Next time tell me _before_ I take a flying swan dive off a twenty foot drop!"

The rest of the group laughed at that, Odd joining in as well, and soon Sissi was laughing too despite herself.

Within a few moments though, the laughter had died down, and a pregnant pause settled in. Jeremie spoke up. "It's time."

The group moved across the abandoned production room toward a huge steel freight elevator. Odd moved away from Sissi as they approached it, and soon she found the five arrayed in front of her in a semi-circle from left to right; Odd, Aelita, Jeremie, Ulrich, and Yumi. Sissi gulped a bit, suddenly feeling nervous again.

"This is where it ends." Jeremie said from the center. "Up until this point, we haven't said anything to you about any of this. We've talked for a long time about it, and we agreed to give you this chance. "

Now Ulrich spoke; his voice was serious. "Past this point, there is no turning away. There's no guarantee of safety either."

"If you want to back out now, you still can. Nobody will hold it against you." Aelita said.

"But make no mistake," Yumi added, "this is your last chance to back out and go back to a normal life."

Sissi looked at each of them, seeing the looks they were giving her. Each was as serious as she had ever seen them. Moreso in fact. She suddenly had the strong impression that the steel doors of the elevator were something like the wardrobe entrance to Narnia, or the red pill from the Matrix. Once she went in and saw whatever it was they were offering, whatever world was beyond, there'd be no going back of her own accord. Whatever it was would change her life in some huge way, for better or worse. She felt like she'd known this all along, but it was only really settling in now. _This is my only chance to run. My only chance to just go back to school, and go back to daddy and Herve and Nikolas and the way things used to be. The only chance to go back to everything being normal._

Her eyes turned to Odd, and he returned the gaze, honest, concerned, deadly serious, and a little scared. But overall, loving; she knew he'd understand whatever choice she made.

Finally, he spoke.

"Elisabeth. Can you keep a secret?"

 _I hated my old life. I had friends, but I was alone. I had daddy, but I didn't have me. I just had this person I made myself into, this mean and nasty person that I never want to be again. I_ _ **won't**_ _be that person again._ _ **Ever**_ _._

"Yes."

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	6. Chapter 5

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5

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Sissi felt herself jump a bit as the elevator abruptly started down. Odd reached out to slowly rub her back a bit, trying to reassure her. She'd made her choice, and now the group was on their way down to…wherever the elevator was taking them. Everyone was keeping quiet, but despite her nervousness about what awaited, Sissi's feeling of dread was oddly gone.

The elevator finally came to a smooth halt, and the large doors cranked open. The others all moved out of it and into a well lit room with white walls. Sissi stepped out as well, feeling her mouth opening. In the center of the room was what almost looked like a round raised stage, with a cylindrical tower stretching up from its center. The enormous object was mostly plated in gold and black metal save for some exposed computer parts, and light seemed to flow through it in yellow and blue lines at varying intervals. Around the base of the thing were what looked like thousands of electrical cords running into the floor in a ring, with thick glass windows plated over the jumbled mess.

Jeremie moved up to the object and put a hand on it, looking back at her. "This is a quantum supercomputer. So far as we know, it may be the only one ever made. You could probably run most of the infrastructure of France and a fair portion of the United States off this one machine, with the right installation. Anyways, the point is, it's very powerful." He paused and took his hand off the machine. "Unfortunately, when we discovered it, something else had found out how powerful it was, and was putting it to use."

Sissi gave the boy genius a confused look. "Something else?"

"XANA. A malevolent computer virus."

The words came from Aelita, and as Sissi turned to look at her, she felt an odd and unpleasant sensation; like Aelita wasn't really looking back at her, but somewhere else, somewhere a lot more…painful.

"Originally, XANA was a simple program, designed to oversee operations of the supercomputer. Over the years, with the size of the supercomputer, it began to expand and grow in strength. Eventually, it became self-aware, and began to learn. And once it did that...it corrupted, and began to lash out at people." Aelita's distant gaze seemed to refocus, and she looked at Sissi directly. "Now, XANA is hatred. It hates all people, everywhere, and it wants them all either suffering or dead."

Sissi shivered as she listened to Aelita, looking back at the strange computer; where before she'd found it intriguing and oddly pretty with all the gold, now it seemed to glitter with malice.

"A lot has happened since we first found the computer." Now Yumi had joined the conversation. "The supercomputer is strong enough that it powers a lot of really advanced tech here in the factory. We use that technology to fight XANA, and to try and stop him from attacking the rest of the world."

Sissi felt a small laugh leak out. "What, like superheroes or something?"

Ulrich's answer was firm. "It wasn't what we planned to do, but that's how it happened."

Odd put a hand on her shoulder. "I know this'll be a lot to take in. We can prove it though."

Another short elevator ride up, and they had stepped into another room. This one was lit by a green hologram in the middle of the room, with metal plates on the walls and floor, and a circular track both above and below holding a mess of wires attached to a keyboard and computer screen and a raised techy-looking chair respectively. Jeremie took a seat and typed a few keys on the keyboard; the dim hologram suddenly lit up brighter, and Sissi found herself staring a strangely shaped sphere with what looked almost like pieces of shattered glass stretching out from it's center in four jumbled plates. On closer inspection though, she realized that each of the four was distinct and different from the rest; one looked like icebergs, one had tall skinny trees, one had flat plains and rocky outcroppings, and one looked like the peaks of mountains. At the center of it all was a smaller sphere in blue, seeming almost serene compared to the chaos around it.

"This is how we've fought XANA for a long time." Jeremie explained, typing at the computer more. "This is a virtual world that was on the supercomputer. Think of it kind of like the operating system on a PC, like Windows. Except this one, we call Lyoko."

He put on a headset and looked to the others. "So who's doing the demonstration?"

Yumi raised a hand. "I'll go for it. Drop me in the plains, it'll be the easiest one to track visually." She headed into the elevator and the doors closed behind her; Sissi could hear it descending. A few moments later, a screen had opened on the hologram showing a room with three golden cylinders inside; apparently a camera from another room. Sissi watched as Yumi entered the view, and stepped inside one of the cylinders. It closed behind her, and Jeremie tapped at the keyboard again. "Transferring: Yumi. Virtualization."

In another moment, the hologram had zoomed in to the segment covered with plains and rocks, and something popped into view on one of them. A window opened next to it like the view from a video camera, and Sissi could see that the figure was Yumi, though unlike she had ever seen the girl; her black clothes had been swapped for a dark mauve and black bodysuit crisscrossed with pink accents, as well as combat gloves and boots. Yumi was speaking aloud but there was no sound; Jeremie replied from the chair into his headset. "All clear here Yumi, we can see you fine."

"So is this like…a computer game or something?" Sissi asked, more confused than ever. "I'm sorry, I don't think I'm grasping this. This all looks like computer game stuff."

Aelita looked to her again, her tone patient. "It's not a game at all. XANA uses technology to launch attacks on the real world. It does that by activating towers dotted across Lyoko's map, which lets it tap into things like the local power stations or phone signals. There aren't any real limits to what it can do; it's even taken over a military satellite before."

"Okay, hang on." Sissi felt another nervous laugh come out, and felt her own irritation rising inexplicably. "You're talking about a computer program hacking the government? That's not possible."

"Why not?" Ulrich asked, his voice challenging.

"Because! It's the government! People can't do that, how could a program?"

Ulrich scoffed. "Tell that to the Americans."

Sissi halted for a second, then continued quickly. "Okay, so governments can get hacked yeah, but…a program doing stuff on it's own? Like, future artificial intelligence stuff? I mean, next you'll be saying that it can make fish fly around or Aelita's from another planet or something!"

There was a long silence in the room, and Sissi suddenly felt cold. The longer it went, the worse she felt, and as she played back her response over the last few minutes, she realized how much she sounded like her old self. She looked at Odd, and the tight look on his face as he looked away a bit. She looked to Ulrich, and the frustration on his face. She looked to Jeremie, and the sadness on his face. Then she looked to Aelita, and saw…something else entirely that made her feel even worse.

When Sissi spoke again, her voice came out very small. "A…Aelita?"

"…I was kept a prisoner in Lyoko by XANA for ten years. My last name isn't Stones; it's Hopper. My father, Franz Hopper, created Lyoko within the supercomputer. People came from the government to take it away from him, and that's when XANA struck. My father tried to hide himself and I inside Lyoko to avoid them. XANA killed them all, then imprisoned us there and wiped my memory of him. A failsafe shut the supercomputer down, and XANA kept me there in stasis for the next decade." Aelita swallowed, before looking up at Jeremie. "The next time I saw or heard anyone's voice was when Jeremie found the supercomputer and turned it back on. He found me, he talked to me, and when XANA woke back up and came after me, he brought the others in to help fight XANA and protect me. And then, eventually, he managed to write programming to reverse the virtualization process…and bring me back to the real world."

Sissi suddenly felt like an enormous chunk of something had fallen into place in her head. _If this is all true…then that totally explains why she's the way she is about him._ She also felt another pang of shame for her outburst.

Aelita seemed to see it on her face. She walked over and put a hand on Sissi's shoulder. "This is all new, I know. You don't have to process it all right away. Take the time you need. But trust me when I say, it's all true."

Sissi nodded slowly and mutely, starting to feel a bit overwhelmed. Her mind still tried to come up with excuse after excuse for what she was seeing, trying to explain it away. But when she turned and saw Odd, and saw the nervous concern on his face as his eyes met her, she was able to begin pushing it all aside for one simple fact; Odd wouldn't lie about something this big. Neither would Aelita. And if they wouldn't, neither would the rest of them.

But that didn't change that it was a huge amount to take in. "Is it alright if I sit down?"

Odd took her hand and led her over toward one of the walls, sitting her down against it before joining her, as Aelita and Ulrich joined Jeremie at the computer to talk to Yumi. Odd took Sissi's hand in his, giving it a light squeeze.

"Are you doing okay?"

"I don't know. I mean, I feel like I just got about sixteen carpets yanked out from under me and my stomach is in free-fall." She shook her head a bit. "When you said there was something going on, after all the action getting here and the factory and all, I thought it was going to turn out that you guys all did some kind of crazy parkour stuff or something." She leaned back to look up at the thick cords twisting around the ceiling of the room. "This…I never could have guessed at all of this."

Odd nodded. "If it helps, I felt basically the same way when I first found out. When Jeremie tried explaining what he'd found on the computer, I thought he'd gone nuts and that Aelita was some thing he'd programmed on a screen." He laughed suddenly. "The only reason that I even ended up believing it was because they stole Kiwi to test the virtualization scanners and I scooped him out of it and got trapped myself and ended up on Lyoko!"

Sissi laughed a little, trying to reassure herself further. "So, about this XANA thing…you guys said it attacks the real world?"

"Yeah. XANA's a mean piece of work. He's done all kinds of stuff. He tried to blow up the nuclear power plant once, he took over a bunch of rats and set them on the school, heck one time he even took over Milly's teddy bear and tried to smash the school prom with it just to get at Ulrich and Yumi."

"Hang on, what?" Sissi's voice became incredulous again. "There's no way all of that could have gone on without anyone knowing about it."

"Oh, that's because of the Retu-oh." Odd ground to a halt, realizing where the conversation was going and suddenly feeling very uncomfortable.

"The what?" Sissi prodded.

Odd paused, then called out to Jeremie. "Hey Einstein, you're going to need to explain Return to the Past."

Jeremie looked up from the computer, seeming to hesitate for a moment before answering. "One of the abilities of the supercomputer is a brief time reversion of two days."

Sissi tilted her head. "Time…reverwhat?"

"The supercomputer can cause an event where time is turned back by a maximum of two days."

"What, like time travel?"

"Time wiping. Whatever point it goes back to, all those events never happened. No one knows they happened. The only people who keep their memories are the people who have virtualized into Lyoko and thus the supercomputer. Everyone else doesn't remember any of the more serious attacks."

A sudden thought came into Sissi's head. The thought quickly became all dominating and after a moment she began to panic. She stood up quickly from the floor, almost stumbling, and Odd tried to rise after her as she moved halfway toward the computer. "Nobody remembers when you do it? Nobody at all? Everyone gets wiped?" Her voice rose in pitch and shakiness with every question.

Jeremie looked up at her, looking a little sad, but he replied firmly. "Yes. Everyone who hasn't entered Lyoko gets that time wiped."

"Including me?" Sissi demanded, her hands shaking now and a cold sweat breaking out on her forehead. "Did I get wiped? _How many times did I get wiped?_ "

Jeremie suddenly seemed to clam up with uncertainty. Sissi quickly looked to Ulrich, who looked away, then to Aelita, who also looked away. Suddenly everything in her head was screaming to leave, right away, and without being able to think straight, she obeyed in a panick; in a moment, she'd bypassed the closed elevator door and rushed off down a hallway off the computer room, disappearing into the factory.

Odd quickly gave chase even as the others called out behind him. He ran after Sissi, catching a glimpse of her disappearing around a corner ahead, then as he rounded that corner she had vanished from sight. "SISSI! Come back!" His voiced echoed back to him, followed by a clang; he ran off in the direction of the noise, rounding another corner just in time to see Sissi picking herself up from the floor ahead, having tripped over a low pipe, before she took off running again and around another corner. He leapt over the pipe and continued after her, calling out to her again. "SISSI!" The chase continued, with him barely catching glimpses of her at intervals as the two barreled deep into the factory. The longer it went, the more Odd began to fear getting lost in the maze of pipes and hallways and overhangs; it was easy to forget just how enormous the factory was.

Suddenly ahead there came a scream, and Odd felt a surge of adrenaline and charged around another corner. The passage had opened to a larger room with a catwalk over a darkened room below, but the catwalk was rusted over and had given way, leaving a twisted edge jutting out over the blackness.

Clinging just barely to that metal grated catwalk with one hand was Sissi, hanging over the dark drop below.

Odd didn't even slow down; even as his ears registered her frightened gasps, he dove onto the catwalk front-first and grabbed her wrist with both hands. "Sissi! Give me your other hand!"

Sissi was looking down at the blackness below, her eyes panicked, and Odd saw that one of her shoes was gone and a sock was torn with a red blot forming on it; twisting his head back, he saw a jagged chunk of the former catwalk poking up and realized what must have happened. He looked back to her, keeping his hold on her wrist tight.

"Sissi! Look at me! Don't look at the fall, look at me!"

Sissi looked up at him, her eyes still wild and fearful, and Odd suddenly felt awful for ever bringing up this entire ordeal to the group. Then some of the terror leaked out of her eyes, and she bit her lip, slowly getting her other arm up. As soon as it was within reach, Odd grabbed it with a hand. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he began to pull her back up. It took time; he wasn't nearly as strong as he wished he was. As he pulled, he moved up to his knees, then leaned back, being mindful of the jagged edge Sissi had apparently caught her shoe on.

Finally he pulled her all the way up, laying all the way back on the catwalk with Sissi laying on top of him. She clung to him tightly, shivering, and soon small sobs began to shake her slim frame.

"I-I-I-I'm s-s-s-sorry…" Her words came stuttered between the quiet sobs.

Soon enough Odd felt himself tearing up, and he held her tightly and close, pushing everything else out of his mind but her, sniffling even as he tried to speak softly and reassuringly, just holding the girl he loved close, and beating himself up inside for ever doing something to lead to her being hurt like this.

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	7. Chapter 6

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6

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"I'm…sorry I ran…I just suddenly panicked…"

It was an odd mirroring of how they'd laid in bed the day before; her head on his chest, with him holding her warmly. Odd had shifted the two of them off the catwalk, and now they just lay on the dusty floor. Sissi had finally calmed down after several minutes, and a quick check had made sure that the bleeding in her foot had stopped; thankfully it was a smaller cut than he'd feared, and the sock had soaked it up and helped it clot over quickly.

"No, I'm sorry, for all of this…I should have realized it wouldn't be as easy to explain it all as I thought it would be." Odd kissed her head before continuing. "There are so many things with all of this are just normal, everyday routine stuff for us, and it made me forget how it could feel for someone normal coming into this and how shocking it might be."

Sissi nodded slightly against his chest. Finally, she spoke again. "How many times was I wiped?"

"I…don't know. We don't do it unless we have to normally. I don't even know how it all works; it seems like total sci-fi crazy talk. But there have been times when we _had_ to. Like the teddy bear thing I mentioned; I know that whole thing sounds crazy, but it was totally true, and you can't cover up a giant Teddygodzilla smashing up the gym during prom." He paused for a minute, then added, "I've never asked, but I might have been wiped at some point. I don't know."

Sissi looked up at him. "Was there ever a time when you had to do it because of something I did? Me specifically?" Her gaze was intent, and Odd suddenly felt the lump forming again.

When he did answer, it was croaked out. "…yes…a few times."

"What did I do?"

"Well, one time you were trying to break up Ulrich and Yumi and followed them here, and you tried to bring the police into it. One time it was Herve and Nikolas trying to get us in trouble for you. Early on, when we first found the computer, you did help at first, but then you turned and told your father everything and he brought the police, so we had to wipe that." He looked down at her. "There have been a lot of wipes that weren't because of you though. And you didn't always do bad stuff. One time when the cafeteria had it's walls get electrified, you acted as nurse to the people who got trapped. And a couple times you found out about Lyoko by accident but tried to help us, only for something to go really wrong elsewhere and you got wiped in the process."

"…how many times have I died?"

 _Oh. OH. Oh hell. That's what made her panick._ "Never."

Sissi's eyes narrowed, but Odd quickly said it again. "Never. You never died. Nobody else did either. That's actually the downside of the time reverse thingy; if someone died, they would have stayed dead even after the time went back. We know about that because of the stuff Jeremie has figured out with it, he's a freaking wizard at this stuff." Odd met her gaze as strongly as he could. "So you've never died. Ever. No one has. We've been that lucky so far."

Sissi's eyes softened, and she lay down again, thinking. After a minute, she spoke again. "Why haven't you just turned the computer off? Wouldn't that stop the XANA thing?"

Odd shook his head. "Originally we couldn't because we had to get Aelita out. Then we discovered that XANA had taken some of her memories and kept them in the computer, and if we shut it down, she'd fall unconscious and possibly die. We also discovered that using the time-turny-back stuff caused the computer to get more powerful somehow, and XANA used that; eventually, he escaped from the computer itself into the internet, with all the knowledge and stuff he'd had from being in the computer. He actually destroyed Lyoko entirely once too; Aelita and Jeremie had to rebuild it so we could use it to get online and find and fight XANA."

"When you say fight, do you mean actual physical fighting?"

"Yeah. Like how you saw Yumi go in and she had battle gear on? Ulrich and Aelita and I all have stuff like that too. XANA creates monsters that we have to fight. Because of Aelita's connection stuff to Lyoko, she can deactivate the towers XANA might use to attack places in the real world, so we have to get her to the towers safely past the monsters before any real damage can be done."

Silence fell over the two again as Sissi took more time to think and process. Things were starting to make a little more sense, though she knew the real cure for her head right now was listening to her boyfriend's heartbeat. It had been quick at first, from the adrenaline from chasing her and pulling her up, but now it was slower and steady. It reassured her.

Eventually, she slowly sat up again. "We should probably get back to the others…they're probably worried about you."

Odd sat up as well. "If they're worried, they'd be worried about us both. Don't sell yourself short; you matter to them too, not just to me."

Sissi nodded slowly as they both stood. As she put her feet down, she gave a small yelp and looked down; though her foot wasn't bleeding, it still hurt to put pressure on. But in a moment, she found herself yelping again as Odd suddenly scooped her up in his arms bridal style. She blushed intensely at the move, her arms going around his neck for support as he held her; she hadn't expected he'd be able to really pick her up, but he just gave her an easy grin and started off back up the passageway.

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It was several winding minutes before they'd made their way back to the computer room. Almost immediately, Ulrich, Aelita, and a returned Yumi rushed over to make sure they were both alright. Aelita carefully rolled Sissi's sock off and pulled gauze bandages and disinfectant out of a small first aid kit in her purse; though Sissi winced at it, she was grateful all the same. Odd explained the conversation they'd had, and Ulrich and Yumi listened and nodded, confirming what he'd said in spots.

Once her foot was bandaged up, Sissi looked up at the others. Surrounded by them, she was starting to feel at ease again. But she had one more burning question to ask.

"Have I been wiped since Odd and I started dating?"

Jeremie answered from across the room. "No. Ever since you two started dating, we've worked hard to avoid having to use the Return to the Past."

"We didn't want to accidentally mess something up for you and Odd." Yumi added. "There's been three attacks in that time, but nothing that necessitated a return."

 _Three attacks?_ "Was one a week and a half ago? And another a few days ago?" Sissi asked.

Yumi looked surprised. "Yeah. How'd you know?"

Sissi smiled a bit. "Odd had to cancel a date for one of them. And I saw him and Jeremie headed into the woods a few days ago. I admittedly sort of got into the habit of spying on you guys sometimes in the past because I always figured you were up to something. I just had no idea it would be anything this huge."

"Well, we've probably dumped enough info into your brain for now." Jeremie quipped, shutting down the computer screen. "Probably a good idea to let it compile for a while."

Sissi gave Jeremie an odd look. "Huh?"

The others laughed. Odd clarified for her. "He means let's all go home for the day and get some rest."

"Oh. Well I'm all for that then. Just…umm…can you still give me a lift Odd?"

Odd grinned and responded in an overbearingly English accent. "Why, milady, it would be my utmost pleasure."

Sissi groaned. "Oh shuuuut uuuuup." She held her arms up, and Odd scooped her up again carefully.

Ulrich grinned, keying for the elevator to open. "Going to be a gentleman all the way back to Kadic like that?"

Odd stuck his tongue out at his friend. "Try it with Yumi sometime! It's a big confidence booster!"

Both Ulrich and Yumi answered at once with a resounding "ODD!"

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Back in the broken catwalk room, down in the darkened abandoned room, wet puddles of groundwater sat here and there.

One, darkened further by the two drops of blood that had landed in it, was filled with thick moss that had started a slow climb of the wall.

The moss let out a soft groan, and pushed an inch higher on the wall.

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	8. Chapter 7

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7

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Aelita mumbled in her sleep, trying to will away the thunder she was hearing in her dreams. The rumbling continued, and after a few moments she blearily opened her eyes. She found to her surprise that the "thunder" had followed her out of the dream; it was a small but audible knocking at the door of her dormroom. She glanced at the clock next to her bed; it was past two in the morning.

She yawned slightly, sitting up, her voice tired. "Who is it?"

"It's Sissi…can I come in?"

Aelita rubbed her face a bit and lightly clapped her cheeks twice to wake herself up, sliding her legs out of bed and straightening her long pink nightshirt. She moved to the door, unlocking it and pulling it open. Sissi was standing there in her dark pink pajamas and slippers, her normally straight hair a bit of a mess. She looked tired, but also more than a little nervous.

Aelita stepped aside for her to come in, motioning to the bed. "Have a seat. What's up?"

"Sorry for waking you so late…" Sissi moved to the bed and took a seat, pulling her knees up to her chest. "I couldn't sleep. I've been trying, but my brain keeps thinking things."

"I know that feeling, though not really the same way I guess." Aelita closed the door and sat down close next to her. "When I was trapped on Lyoko after Jeremie and the others found me, I actually wasn't capable of sleeping. So any time that they weren't around, I sat in towers away from any monsters and spent a lot of time just thinking." She smiled a little ruefully. "It probably wasn't the best thing for my own sanity. Our own mind can make us start doing cartwheels."

"Tell me about it." Sissi groaned, leaning forward and resting her head on her knees. "I'm getting past the whole 'this is all crazy talk' stage; Odd and you helped with that. But my brain just keeps trying to come up with more explanations, and when it's not doing that, I'm getting flashbacks to some of the bad dreams I've been having the last few weeks."

Aelita held out a hand palm-up, her voice slipping into a matter-of-fact tone. "Well, that's understandable that your brain is trying to explain it away. Our mind uses denial as a defense mechanism, trying to protect us from outside stress. It's how we don't go insane thinking about how many asteroids float around in space and how it might only take one to end civilization as we know it."

Sissi made a face at her. "Oh, thaaaanks, I reaaaally needed that in my head." But she smiled a bit saying it, showing it was a joke. Soon though, her face returned to its pensive look.

"You mentioned bad dreams?" Aelita prompted.

"Y-Yeah…ever since I started dating Odd, I started having these weird dreams. I was losing track of most of them, but since learning about all of this, bits and pieces of it have started coming back. They usually ended with Odd getting hurt somehow."

"What kinds of things were they about?"

Sissi shivered a bit, taking a breath to steel herself to talk about it. "Well…they're just…weird. Like, there's one where Odd's running from a bunch of these weird giant wasp-like potato things, and he gets stung by them. And there's one where he's falling off a cliff and disappearing into clouds below. And then there was one where…" she trailed off for a minute, before finishing, "…where I see him disintegrating."

She shook her head. "I know this probably all sounds a little silly." She looked at Aelita, then paused; the look she was getting seemed to suddenly suggest it wasn't silly at all.

"So it's happened to you too." Aelita finally said.

"Huh?"

Aelita put her hands in her lap, eyes narrowing slightly as if she was trying to think of how to say the next part. "The Time Reversion…has proven to not be complete on wiping all trace of memories in the past. Once or twice we've had an issue where someone kept small bits of memories from Returns to the Past in the form of dreams, and we've had to contend with the results in future missions. In one of those cases, it led to someone forcing their way onto the team for a while…and that ended really, really badly."

"Was that someone me?"

"Oh, no no. It's not anything we've seen with you before I think." Aelita assured her. "But since it's happened to others, it's completely believable that it could happen with you, especially if you're spending time around us more often. The presence of people from our dreams tends to bring them back out of our subconscious by memory association."

"Oh. Okay." Sissi looked at the far wall, eyes moving over some of Aelita's band posters, thinking again. "So the stuff in my dreams is, like, repressed memories or something? Past stuff?"

"It certainly sounds like it, yeah. The 'wasp-potato things' you described are one of XANA's monster types, which we call Hornets. Usually the monsters stay in Lyoko, but a couple of times XANA has managed to de-virtualize them into the real world. The cliff thing…that was probably in the mountain sector, I think you were present for something like that once. And the disintegrating thing…do you remember what the area around it looked like?"

"Ummm…" Sissi hesitated at first, reluctant to go back to the memory, but she tried to think on it. She bit her lip playing it back in her mind, trying to not look at her boyfriend fading away in the dreamscape. "It looked kind of like a desert or somethi-oh!" She looked to Aelita, her eyes widening in recognition. "It looked like the place where Yumi was yesterday!"

Aelita nodded. "You probably saw him being devirtualized. When we're on Lyoko, we have limited lifepoints. It's kind of like a health bar in a video game, it's basically how much virtual stamina we have left, or how much we can take in a fight. If we get knocked out, we're removed from Lyoko. It's not very fun at all; it drains us enormously. And once you're devirtualized, you need to regain your strength, and you can't just go back in right away. It's why it's so vital that we complete missions to stop XANA without it happening; most of the time we can't afford an entire day of rest time while XANA is doing whatever it's doing."

Sissi nodded, deep in thought again. "I see..." She groaned and put her head down again, sighing.

Aelita put a hand on her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"I feel like such a…well, frankly, such a bitch. Here I've been running around for almost our entire time in Kadic, running you all around and giving you such a hard time, then you all decide to trust me with this whole thing, and my first response is to try and deny it all and panick and run off like a scared little child." She lifted her head just enough to drop it back down on her knees like a head-desk thump. "I mean, if it wasn't for Odd…I just about accidentally threw myself over a freaking bridge with how panicked I was. And before that whole thing, when we were all upstairs, here I was telling myself I was going to leave that mean and nasty person behind and be stronger, and the first thing I did was be a big fat stupid bitch."

"Stop that." Aelita's tone was firm and just a little angry, as she reached out and got a hand under Sissi's chin, lifting it and making the girl look right at her; the pink-haired girl's eyes were giving her the kind of look a parent might give while scolding a child. "Stop calling yourself that. You're not stupid, you're not fat, and you're not a bitch. So stop it. So you reacted badly; you're still here. You didn't run off to your father and blab, or to the police, or even to Herve or Nikolas, or anyone else. In the past, you did all three of those things. But not this time."

"Y-Yeah, but I still ran off. If not for Odd, - "

"Well then, this time you have Odd. If that's what it took, then that's what it took. But even tonight, you didn't go to Odd. You came to me. You know what that tells me?"

"...w-what?"

Aelita's eyes softened a bit and she gave a small smile. "That you trusted me. That when you were confused, you came to me, instead of running off to some authority figure for protection. It tells me you think of me as a friend."

"I...do see you as a friend." Sissi answered, starting to return the smile. "I really do now. It feels weird saying it, given all that's happened in the past…but I really do feel closer to you all now. Even with you; I know we talked online for so long, even though I didn't know it, but in the last couple weeks I still feel more like friends than I ever did before."

"Well, good. Because you're my friend too." Aelita's smile was broad now, and she took one of Sissi's hands in her own. "And I'll always be here if you want to talk."

Sissi nodded, squeezing her hand in return. She looked over at the clock; they'd been talking for a little over twenty minutes. "I should probably get back to my room and try to sleep again."

"Want to stay here instead?" Aelita suggested. "You know, like a sleepover." She stuck her tongue out, giggling. "Just with actual sleep."

Sissi smiled. "Yeah, actually, that might help." She looked around. "Uhh…so where should I sleep?"

Aelita patted the bed.

"But then where will you sleep?"

Aelita patted the bed again.

"O-Oh."

"What?" Aelita grinned mischievously. "Worried I'll make a move on you or something?"

Sissi laughed, blushing, and gave the pink-haired girl a shove. "Oh go jump in an ice bath, you."

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It wasn't that many hours later, as the morning sun was climbing, that Jeremie stood knocking at Aelita's door. It wouldn't be long until classes started, and there hadn't been any sign of her or Sissi at breakfast.

"Aelita? Are you awake yet?"

He knocked again, and heard Aelita's voice murmuring something. Hesitantly, he tried the doorknob; it was unlocked, so he slowly turned it and opened the door.

Aelita was still in bed, lying on her side facing toward him and the room. She mumbled something again, and Jeremie stepped into the room. "Come on Aelita, you slept through your alarm, it's almost eight-thirty, classes will be starting in half an hour."

His girlfriend stirred and opened her eyes, groaning a bit and rubbing them. "Morning, Jeremie…wait, how did you get in?"

"You left the door unlocked. I knocked first though."

"Oh, shoot. I must have forgotten to re-lock it." Aelita slowly made to push herself up from bed, then stopped, an odd look on her face.

Jeremie caught the look. "What is i-" He paused as he looked at the bed, and realized that the lump under the covers was a lot bigger than just Aelita's size, and black hair was poking out from the top of the comforters. At first his brain made a brief worried leap, but Aelita pushed the covers down before his thoughts could get too far, though what he saw just about train-crashed the line of thought. Sissi was laying on her side in her pajamas, fast asleep, arms around Aelita's waist, snuggling up to her back warmly.

"Uhh…" Jeremie struggled for words, his brain both conjuring images and a handful of questions, not really sure which to ask first.

Aelita giggled a bit. "Sissi came to me last night, she was having trouble sleeping." She looked up at him. "I ended up suggesting a sleepover to help her sleep. Apparently it worked."

"O-Oh, I see."

"Jeremie. Get your mind out of the gutter."

Jeremie held up his hands, cheeks reddening. "It's not in the gutter! Really!"

"Who's put what in the gutter?" Odd's voice came from the hallway, and before Aelita could pull the covers back up, he stepped into view fully dressed. "Oh, hey Jeremie, was looking for yo-" He ground to a halt, eyes focused on the bed, mouth falling open. It opened and closed a couple of times, and in that moment Odd looked for all the world like the most confused fish in all of France.

Finally he found his voice, pointing dramatically and exclaiming, looking at Jeremie now. "When did _this_ happen?!"

At the outburst, Sissi stirred, murmuring and opening her eyes, slowly pulling her arms away from Aelita and sitting up, rubbing her eyes. "What's all the noise about…" When she looked up again, she saw the impromptu gathering that had happened in her slumber. Her eyes got wider and her cheeks redder and redder as she looked at Aelita, then at Jeremie's blushing face, then at Odd's surprised and shocked look, before growling and grabbing up a pillow.

"GET OUT!"

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	9. Chapter 8

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8

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"Well at least she didn't kick _you_ out." Odd whined a bit, nursing a bump on his head where Sissi had nailed him with Aelita's clock in her embarrassed barrage. It was later in the morning, and the group was sitting at the lunch table. Aelita and Jeremie were across the table from him; to his left were Ulrich and Yumi, all of them working through the mystery food of the day.

Aelita scoffed. "It was _my_ room, and _I_ hadn't done anything wrong."

"Well what about Jeremie? All he got was the pillow in the face!"

"She probably saw him as less of a threat or something. It is Jeremie after all."

"Ouch." Jeremie winced a little.

Aelita patted her boyfriend on the shoulder reassuringly. "Sorry, Jeremie, but at least it was just the pillow. She was no doubt embarrassed by everyone seeing that."

Jeremie began to answer, but Sissi returning to the table with her own tray cut it off. She sat down on Aelita's right, starting in on her food, her cheeks red and her face still mad, pointedly not looking at the others.

Jeremie spoke up quickly. "I'm really sorry for barging in this morning, Sissi. I didn't realize what might be going on."

Sissi put her fork down, looking at him sharply, her voice clipped. "What just _what_ do you _think_ was going on?"

"Umm, nothing! Certainly nothing out of any of Odd's weird manga." Jeremie's cheeks were red again.

Sissi coughed, abruptly choking on a hunk of food. Aelita thumped her back until she had it under control, before dropping a fist on the table and turning to Jeremie, a challenging grin on her face as her tone became mock-accusatory.

"Jeremie Belpois. Exactly _what_ kind of girl do you take me for?"

Jeremie's hands went up defensively. "I'm kidding! I'm kidding!"

The others at the table laughed, and even Sissi couldn't help a small giggle, though her cheeks were still red. She pointed her spoon at Odd a bit threateningly. "Not a word from you."

"What did I do?!" Odd exclaimed. "All I did was walk in at the total wrong time!"

Sissi reached over and whacked him on the head with the spoon. "Not a word!"

"Oww! Hey! My head already has one dent from the clock, it doesn't need one from cutlery too!"

Aelita piped in again. "On that note, I was more surprised finding out how comfortable you were being the 'big spoon' Sissi."

Sissi blushed again and gave Aelita a bop on the head with the spoon too, albeit a much gentler one. "W-Well, I'm always the little one with Odd. I guess it was just…reassuring, being the one doing the snuggling instead."

Ulrich chimed in. "How are you the 'little' one with Odd? You're taller than him."

"Only when she's in heels – oww!" Odd yelped as Sissi whacked him with the spoon again.

Ulrich smirked. "You don't learn very fast, do you Odd?"

"Well how can I learn with her whacking me all the – oww! Stop it!"

"Maybe she'll beat a little common sense into you over time." Yumi offered.

Odd groaned. "Guys, you're not being fair. It was wrong place, wrong time." He looked at Sissi. "And I'm sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you."

Sissi sighed, looking at the spoon in her hand, them dumping it on her tray and rubbing the bridge of her nose between her fingers. "No, it's alright…I'm sorry too." She stood from the table and moved around to the opposite side behind Odd, turning his head a bit and kissing his forehead, before hugging him from behind. "I overreacted, and I still am." She sighed, looking around at the others. "I guess I'm still processing yesterday. How did you put it Jeremie?"

"Compiling data?"

"Yeah, that."

Yumi patted her back. "It's alright, we understand. And the fact that you're apologizing for it shows the changes you're already putting effort into making."

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A few tables away, a rather different and decidedly terser conversation was taking place. At that table were Herve Pichon and Nikolas Poliakoff. Herve was watching Sissi and her new friends, his fists clenched and his teeth gritted, seething.

"Come on Herve, you need to calm down. You've been like this for weeks now." Nikolas slow and slightly accented voice tried to console his friend. "Sissi made her choice. We've gotta respect that, as her friends."

Herve laughed derisively. " 'Friends', feh! She's been spending every day with those goodie-goods. We've barely seen her in two weeks, and she never eats lunch with us anymore." Amidst all his anger, he still felt shame. Before Odd's dramatic stunt, he knew Sissi had a boy she was interested in online. He'd never made the connection, but he'd tried confessing his own feelings to her; she'd turned him down, and since then they'd barely spoken.

"Uhh, well I've talked to her." Nikolas said.

"What?! When?"

"Oh, uh, pretty often. I've seen her a few times on campus after dinner, she still talks to me. She's a lot happier than she was before. It's almost kinda weird."

"Why isn't she talking to _me_ then? What's wrong with _me_ that she'd rather talk to _you_ instead?" Herve ground his teeth a bit, rounding on his friend. "And why aren't _you_ mad too? I thought you had a thing for Stones, and now she's all tied up with that loser Belpois!"

Nikolas paused, mulling over thoughts slowly; the speed at which he usually did everything. "Actually, I'm sort of over that now a little, it helped me think too. Like, I was angry when Belpois and Aelita got together, you know, 'cause I like her. But talking with Sissi got me thinking, like, I liked this version of Aelita in my head, you know? Not the real thing. So I wasn't thinking about what she might like." He shrugged. "I mean, I still like her, but I have to try and respect that choice, even if I don't get it, or really like Belpois."

"Ugh. Since when were you the mushy, feely-feely type?" Herve sounded disgusted.

Nikolas shrugged, proceeding dumbly. "Maybe that's why Sissi doesn't talk to you now. Because it feels like you're not respecting her choice."

"I'm **_not_** _!_ " Herve exclaimed. A few heads turned nearby and he dropped his voice lower, repeating himself in a slightly more dangerous tone. "I'm _not_ respecting it. Della Robbia must have done something to her, blackmailed her or something. They hated each other. Once she remembers that, she'll break it off with him."

Nikolas frowned. He wasn't always the quickest in thinking, but he'd known Herve long enough to know trouble when it was coming. "Herve. Hey, man, as your friend. Whatever you're thinking of doing, don't. Don't try and meddle in it."

"Oh like you're one to talk! We both meddled in everything for Sissi!"

"Yeah, I know. And we probably still would if she asked. But right now, that's not what she wants. She's happy. I've never seen her so happy. You can't just ignore that."

Herve gripped his fork firmly. _Like heck I can't. I'm the only one worthy of Sissi. She'll realize that. I'll make sure she can see that._

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Back at the table, Jeremie's bag began to beep steadily. The scattered laughter that had spread around the table suddenly came to a halt, and Sissi felt the mood shift to sudden seriousness as everyone looked to the bag. Jeremie opened it and pulled his laptop out, opening the device and tapping away at it.

"What is it?" Sissi asked.

Jeremie's voice was low. "It's a XANA attack, I think. A tower's been activated on Lyoko. It's not a Replika this time. But the signal is coming in weird."

"Replika?"

Odd explained to her quickly. "When XANA broke out of the supercomputer, he started making clones of parts of Lyoko across the Internet, which we call Replikas. He uses those to launch attacks now usually, though he still sometimes gets into our Lyoko too, since we can't disconnect it from the net completely or we wouldn't be able to fight him."

"What's weird about it?" Ulrich leaned across the table, keeping his own voice low.

Aelita leaned over to look at the computer. "Hmm…usually the data transmission is both ways when XANA's trying to control something or affect something. But this data is all flowing one way; outward from Lyoko. There's no return information."

Jeremie closed the computer. "Well, whatever it is, we need to get it shut down." He went to stand from the table, as did everyone else.

Sissi quickly spoke up, trying to balance her voice for quiet but also keeping it audible. "Hang on! If you all leave at once, people will notice something is up, won't they?"

There was a long pause, then everyone sat back down slowly. A couple of odd looks shot around the table, and Sissi had an abrupt and unpleasant realization. "Oh…that's probably how I found you guys once before, isn't it?"

Yumi shrugged. "It's a fair guess. But you're right anyways. And classes start in thirty minutes, so we can't all be missing from them, that would be suspicious too."

"Alright. Well, we know Jeremie has to go." Ulrich added. "So, who else is on cleanup duty for this thing?"

Aelita raised a hand. "I'll need to deactivate the tower."

Odd raised his hand. "I'll go too."

Sissi paused, before she raised a hand as well. The others looked surprised. Jeremie looked up at her. "Are you sure?"

"Sort of. I don't think I'm ready to try and do any of the stuff you guys do yet…all the fighting and stuff. But maybe seeing what you do, maybe that'll help me get a better grasp on all of this, since it's still kind of abstract in my head." She looked at Odd. "Besides, it might be better for the cover story if it's Odd and me both missing rather than just him."

Odd grinned. "What, like we skived off class to go make out somewhere?"

"Something like that." Sissi answered with a nonchalant tone and a small smile.

"Alright then, that makes sense." Jeremie slipped the laptop back into his bag and stood. "Aelita and I will head out first. After a few minutes, Odd and you can come a different way. And Ulrich and Yumi will head to classes." He looked to the latter two. "If either of you see or hear anything weird going on, or any sign of what XANA might be doing, call our cells if you can."

Yumi nodded. "Will do. We'll wait here until lunch finishes, to avoid suspicion."

Aelita rose as well, her voice back at normal levels. "Alright, we'll see you all later then. Come on Jeremie, let's get to studying." She took him by the hand and led him off; a few heads turned as they passed, but students quickly went back to their food, unconcerned.

Sissi held her hands together, counting down time in her head, her food forgotten. Yumi looked across at her. "Relax, Sissi. It's going to be fine. Whatever's going on, we'll deal with it. We always have. And we've done it without the full group plenty of times." Her voice was confident and reassuring, and Sissi reminded herself again of the strange notion that she was sitting at a table with people who had apparently been fighting in this secret battle for a long time.

"Alright. I believe you."

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	10. Chapter 9

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9

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Sissi's eyes adjusted quicker this time as she climbed out of the manhole on the bridge, swapping her rollerblades for another pair of shoes as Odd climbed up behind her.

"So Jeremie and Aelita have to be there for every attack?"

Odd pulled himself out of the hole. "Yeah. Einstein's the only one smart enough to run the supercomputer, besides Aelita, but she's the only one who can deactivate towers due to her connection with Lyoko and XANA." He pulled the manhole cover back into place and stood, taking Sissi's hand to pull her up. "And Aelita needs at least one guard to help fight off anything that tries to stop her from getting to the tower."

They both made their way inside. Odd paused before the chains, pointing off to the side. "The stairs are over there."

"Yeah, I know." Sissi said, before running at the chains before he could stop her. She leapt off the ledge, grabbing the nearest one and swinging wildly on it. At first, Odd thought she was doing quite well, but then he saw the mildly-frightened look on her face that said pretty clearly that she hadn't fully thought it out, and he couldn't help but laugh a bit. While she swung around holding onto the chain tightly, he leapt and grabbed one himself, swinging down to the ground smoothly. Soon Sissi's chain came to a stop, and she slowly shimmied her way down again, her face scrunched in a pout.

"You alright?" Odd asked as she landed, grinning a bit.

"I thought I could do it this time." Sissi replied, sounding put out. "I got the jump right, but once it was swinging I didn't know how to control it."

"You'll get the hang of it eventually. Come on, let's get downstairs."

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The elevator doors opened to the control room and Sissi and Odd stepped out. Jeremie was already at the computer chair, typing away rapidly. He looked back to Odd, his expression a little harried. "Get down to the scanner room, quick! Aelita's pinned down by a pair of Megatanks in the Forest Sector!"

Odd's eyes widened a bit, but he quickly turned and moved back to the elevator. Sissi hesitated, but Odd quickly spoke to her as he turned back around. "Stay up here with Jeremie. You'll be able to watch from the hologram." The doors began closing, and he grinned at her. "I'll be fine." Then they locked shut.

Sissi turned back to the hologram at the center of the room, which had zoomed in on the plane of green fragments dotted with the skinny trees. As she watched, a red flat circle stretched up from one spot on the map. Jeremie's typing didn't let up, but in the midst of it a window opened with a close up view of one spot of the sector.

Aelita had her back to a particularly thick tree, surrounded by flat green rocks. Her attire had changed to a pink bodysuit with white bands, an open-front translucent miniskirt, long purple fingerless gloves, and on closer inspection her ears had become pointed and she had pink tribal marks on her cheeks.

On the other side of the enormous tree, half a dozen or so yards away, were two enormous sphere-things. Each was gunmetal black, with their spherical bodies split in the middle, exposing metal struts and what looked like stretched red muscle pulled between the two halves. At the center of each was a large yellow circle with a strange emblem on it; smaller yellow circles with the same emblem dotted their way around the sphere halves.

As she watched, one of the two things suddenly glowed, before emitting an enormous red disc-like laser wave, which spread out perpendicular to the ground in front, above, and behind it. The wave slammed against the tree and it shook violently; soon it became clear that the huge tree was slowly being deeply gouged out, as the other thing fired the same way, the blast gouging even further.

"Are those XANA monsters?" She asked Jeremie, unable to pull her eyes away.

"Yeah. We call them Megatanks. They're some of the toughest ones he has; he only needs to send a couple to really mess with our day. They're heavy so they take time to start moving, and they're bad at turns once they're rolling, but they're extremely powerful and very, very dangerous."

Another screen came up showing the room with the cylindrical scanners downstairs; Odd was climbing into one before it closed up. "All set, Jeremie." His voice came from a speaker in the console.

Jeremie continued to type. "I'll try to put you as close as I can without getting you in the line of fire. Transferring: Odd. Virtualization!"

The scanner glowed, and a moment later a wireframe had appeared a short ways away from the battle. It slowly filled in with purple and yellow, and in a moment it had dropped to the ground fully formed, giving Sissi her first look at Odd virtualized. His outfit was a dark purple bodysuit like the others, though with splashes of dark blue at the legs and chest and yellow lines around the arms. His unique hairstyle was the same as ever, but it was accented by purple feline ears. Those matched the long tail behind him, and his gloves and the boots of the bodysuit were stylized like a lion's paws. As she watched, her boyfriend dropped to all fours and began to run not unlike a wildcat, moving at great speed.

"Why does Odd look like that?" She asked. "Actually, why does everyone look different?"

"Those are our virtual avatars." Jeremie explained. "It's not the originals; Lyoko scans someone when they first virtualize and provides a default one based on their subconscious. I've upgraded ours since then, since we needed more power and versatility, so these are the ones I put together with the group, though they're not too different from what they used to be."

As she watched, Odd caught up to Aelita behind the tree. His voice came from the speaker; Jeremie had apparently piped the sound from his headset to the console for her benefit.

"Doing alright Princess?" Odd leaned out from the tree past Aelita, pulling back as a Megatank blast shot past again.

"A little worse for wear." Aelita admitted. "They were guarding the tower, but they kept out of sight until I was almost there; they almost caught me in a cross blast."

Odd peeked out again, spotting the tower a ways past the Megatanks; it was glowing the familiar red to indicate XANA possession.

"Alright Jeremie, any suggestions? We're not going to be able to play hide and seek all day with these guys."

Jeremie shook his head. "Best I can say is that you should try and improvise. But whatever you're doing, hurry. The data stream is getting stronger. It's like XANA is trying to dump an enormous amount of information into something. It started building up as soon as Aelita virtualized."

"Oh, goodie." Odd leaned out from the tree again, ducking back from another blast. He swiped over his fist, double-checking his arrow count out of habit, then took a breath and leaned out again, hammering out a trio of arrows at the left Megatank. Two of them sliced through some of the sinew inside the body, but the monster quickly pulled its sphere closed and the last shot bounced off harmlessly. Ominously, the monster began to roll forward, apparently no longer content to wait.

"Uh oh. Aelita, we're going to need to make tracks quick here. Jeremie?"

In response, Odd's purple Overboard materialized in front of them. Odd leapt on, pulling Aelita on behind him; as soon as she had a grip on his waist, he rocketed away, just in time for the mobile tank to round the tree, open up, and hammer an energy blast into the spot where they'd been standing. At first, it seemed confused by the absence, turning itself around at random to look for its prey.

Before it could react, Odd brought the board swinging back around the tree, opening up with both shooters. This time, the tank couldn't react fast enough; arrows ripped through sinew and several buried themselves in the XANA eye at its center, and as Odd and Aelita pulled away, the Megatank exploded spectacularly.

Left alone, the second tank abruptly closed up and rolled back from the tree. Odd turned the board back to watch it; the tank rolled back into the clearing in front of the tower, then turned to face them and opened up.

"Dang. Hey Jeremie, this guy's playing guard dog out in the open; I'm not going to have a good angle of attack on him."

"Hmm…" Jeremie leaned over the computer screen. "And it's not liable to go after you as bait to let Aelita get past, since it would just focus on her first."

Sissi watched all of this attentively, completely transfixed. To her it almost looked like a video game, but the seriousness of everyone's tone made it clear it wasn't a pastime for fun. She couldn't help but also be both impressed and surprised by watching how Odd handled himself; he was agile, accurate, calculating every move, and strategizing on his feet. It wasn't the Odd she'd seen him as in the past, but from what she'd learned about him in the last few weeks, it was now a lot easier to understand the progression.

Which, she realized, made the persona he'd spent so long using in public to keep up appearances even more of an example of how much he actually thought things out. Sure, some if it was honest goofiness, but watching the battle play out, she felt like she was really getting a view of Odd for the first time all over again.

She looked away to Jeremie for a moment, trying to think of any way she could help or advice she could give, but nothing was coming to mind. She looked around the room again, trying to pick out her thoughts. As her eyes roamed, they passed over the hallway she'd ran down the day before.

In the darkness at the far end of it, eyes stared back out at her.

Sissi froze. "J-J-Jeremie."

Jeremie looked up as she slowly pointed down the hall. A strange sound was coming from it, like thick, lumbering, muffled footsteps. The glowing amber eyes were getting closer.

Jeremie's eyes widened. "Oh no. Odd, I think we found whatever XANA was doing. And it's here in the factory." He rapidly began to type again, and in the hallway several thick steel security doors began to slam down in succession. As they did, whatever was beyond them suddenly bellowed out a low, carrying, throaty wet roar that sounded more like several beasts yelling all at once. Both Jeremie and Sissi jumped as the sound of one of the doors being slammed by thick fists echoed up the hall.

Jeremie twisted to look to Sissi, his voice tense but firm. "Call Ulrich and Yumi, now. We're going to need them. Whatever that is, it's still coming. And it's angry."

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	11. Chapter 10

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10

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"Come on Herve. This isn't a good idea."

"I didn't ask _you_ to come Nikolas." Herve poked his head out from the manhole. After he saw Sissi and Odd leave, he'd followed them, intending to interrupt somehow or some way; he hadn't really bothered to fully think it out. He'd been thrown for a loop when he saw them going down into the sewers, but he'd followed.

Nikolas, hoping to stop his friend from anything rash, had followed. "Well someone had to follow you. Anyways, where are-" He paused as he climbed out of the hole. "Hey. This is my fishing spot! This is the factory where we saw Della Robbia and Aelita, isn't it?"

Herve looked around for any sign of Sissi and Odd. "Yeah, this is it alright. Now isn't that a coincidence?"

"Do you think Della Robbia brought her here because he knew it was a good spot for stuff?"

"What kind of stuff?"

"Uhh, you know. _Stuff._ "

Herve froze. " _Stuff?_ As in _stuff stuff?_ "

Nikolas suddenly realized the mistake his slow thinking had made. "Uhh, wait, maybe not _stuff stuff_ , maybe it's just – hey wait, Herve!"

Herve had made a beeline for the factory doors. Nikolas groaned and ran after him.

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Down in the computer room, Sissi had put herself over by the computer with Jeremie. In the last few minutes, two of the security doors had collapsed with enormous crash-bangs as the whatever-it-was brute-forced them down.

"I don't think they're going to get to the tower before it gets here." Jeremie said, looking nervous.

"Well what are we going to do then?" Sissi's voice was just as scared; getting a look at those strange inhuman eyes had given her a good scare, and reminder her once again that she had stumbled into a world where safety was not guaranteed at all.

"I'm not – " Jeremie stopped as his cell phone rang and he picked up. "Hello? Oh good, Ulrich, you're here. Where's Yumi? A pop exam? Greaaaat. Well, get down here quick, we've got a big problem knocking at the doors."

Ulrich said something but one of the security doors gave way with a crash and blotted it out, making Sissi and Jeremie jump. "Sorry Ulrich, I didn't catch that, another door just gave way. We've only got three left. What did you say?"

Sissi leaned in to hear, just in time to hear Ulrich's reply.

"You've got a problem upstairs too. Herve and Nikolas are in the factory."

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Ulrich kept a hand over the speaker of his phone to lessen the volume as he crouched on the upper platform inside the factory entrance. Down on the main floor, Herve and Nikolas were poking around, looking behind boxes and machinery.

"What are they doing here?" Jeremie's voice came from the phone, mildly muffled by a bang from somewhere in the background.

"I don't know, but they're going over the place with a fine tooth comb." Ulrich replied. "I'd bet a hundred euro they followed Sissi and Odd here; Herve looks like he's about ready to pop a vein."

Below, Herve vanished into a hallway. Nikolas followed after his friend reluctantly.

"Jeremie, they're headed for the stairs down."

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Jeremie let out a short, sharp swear; Sissi realized she hadn't heard him swear before, essentially ever. He looked up at her. "If they follow the hallways and passages from upstairs, they're going to end up back in the mechanical workings, and that's going to lead them…"

Sissi looked up at the security doors as another roar came from beyond the remaining three. "They're going to come up right behind that thing!" She paled as another huge crash came as another security door went. "Crap…this is my fault. Herve tried to ask me out a few weeks ago, and I turned him down. I've been talking to Nikolas in the last few days, and he's been saying how Herve has been angry and touchy ever since." Sissi looked back at Jeremie. "He must have followed me and Odd here trying to stop us from doing anything."

Odd's voice came from the speakers. "It's probably actually Aelita's and my fault too. Remember the thing Jeremie? When we had to throw them off? That was just a couple weeks before everything started."

"Thing?" Sissi asked. Another bang from the hall made her jump.

"We'll explain it later." Jeremie said, still holding the phone up. "Ulrich, get down to the scanners as fast as you can, we need you on Lyoko to get this tower down."

An affirmative sound came from the phone, and Jeremie closed it. He looked up at Sissi, taking a deep breath.

"Sissi. You're going to have to stop Herve and Nikolas. If they end up in that thing's way, it's not going to end well at all."

Sissi paled, swallowing a lump. Fear was settling in a pit in her stomach again. But she clenched her fists, steeling herself.

"Where should I go?"

Jeremie tapped at the computer and abruptly a sheet of paper printed out from above; he grabbed it and handed it to Sissi. "Here's a map of the factory. To catch up with them, you'll have to go down the access hatch to the virtualization chamber." He pointed at a hall on the map. "From there, take this hall and follow the blue arrow markings to get you back up to this level. Find Herve and Nikolas and get them away from this thing; if you can without being completely in danger, try and get it away from the security doors, there's only two left."

Sissi nodded, gripping the map. "Alright, where do I start?"

Jeremie pointed to a spot on the floor. "The hatch is there."

Sissi moved to it and grasped at the metal plate; it lifted smoothly, revealing a ladder going down. Without waiting, she climbed in and started down quickly, closing the hatch behind her.

"Jeremie, are you sure about this?" Odd's voice came from the computer, sounding extremely tense.

Jeremie gripped the console as another bang came from the security doors. "Odd, if I had any choices left, I'd take them. Right now, Sissi's the only one we can count on for this."

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	12. Chapter 11

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11

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Sissi hit the bottom of the ladder just as the elevator doors opened. Ulrich stepped out, nodding to her.

"Go on, Sissi. I'll get the stuff on Lyoko. As soon as we shut the tower down, whatever that thing is upstairs should stop; without the towers, XANA can't possess things."

Sissi nodded and took off down the hallway on her map; she heard the scanner close behind her and the _swoosh_ of energy as Ulrich was virtualized. She rounded the first corner and found the blue arrow markings on the wall, and quickly set off to follow them.

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"Come on Herve. This place is empty, and it's all freaky and creepy too…"

Nikolas followed his friend as he stalked down corridor after corridor, descending further into the old abandoned workings of the factory. Herve didn't slow down at all, heading toward another flight of stairs down. Nikolas reluctantly followed him down and into another series of hallways. The light had gotten even darker, with barely any visibility so deep into the place. Nikolas could hear rhythmic thumping of machinery somewhere in it all.

Herve was moving ahead again, picking up speed and rounding another corner. Nikolas ran to catch up, finally grabbing his friend's arm.

"Hey! Let me go!"

"Listen Herve! You're not thinking this out!" Nikolas yelled, finally losing his patience. "You don't even know where we're going, we're just getting more and more lost in all of this piping and machinery and stuff! I get that you want Sissi to see you as a man, but you're going about this whole thing totally wrong!"

Herve shook his arm free, yelling back. "If you don't like it, you can go get lost! Some friend you are!"

Nikolas growled and grabbed Herve off the ground abruptly by his shirt collar, holding him right up to his face, his voice suddenly more aggressive and loud. "Being your friend doesn't mean I won't punch you right in your stupid face for being stupid, stupid!"

The two looked at each other, both glaring and grinding their teeth. Then, suddenly, Nikolas realized something.

The rhythmic machine pounding had stopped.

Down the hall, something groaned.

Herve and Nikolas both slowly turned their heads to look down one of the darkened halls.

Glowing amber eyes looked back.

Then whatever it was roared at them, a terrible sound like drowning beasts, and it charged.

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Sissi heard the screams before she saw anything, coming to a halt suddenly. She quickly looked at her map again and rushed up another staircase and down another hallway, trying to follow it. She skidded to a halt as she reached the hallway that led to the security doors. The second to last one was nearly slammed to pieces, and the rest were crumpled inward, but there was no sign of whatever had done it.

Well, almost no sign. Strangely, the floor was absolutely covered in wet, thick moss. And as she looked down, Sissi realized that the light bleeding from the security hall showed wet round mossy footprints leading away from the hall. Hesitating only for a moment, she quickly followed them.

Somewhere ahead, she heard Nikolas and Herve's voices screaming again. _If anything happens to them, it's going to be all my fault! I've got to find them!_

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Back on Lyoko, Ulrich was charging directly at the Megatank, swords drawn. Odd, at the same time, dive-bombed it on his Overboard, peppering it with arrows. A little ways behind them, Aelita had extended her wings and was preparing to dive.

Overwhelmed with targets, and with the primary target out of range, the tank swiveled back and forth, arrows shredding sinew, before it closed up and charged at Ulrich. As soon as it closed, Aelita dove for the tower

Ulrich crossed his swords to catch the charge. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough, and the Megatank slammed into the swords, pushing Ulrich back until he was brutally crushed against a tree and instantly devirtualized, disintegrating into pixels of data.

Odd yelled to Aelita. "Keep going, don't stop!" He quickly charged the tank, hammering away with arrows even as it began to turn toward Aelita and reopen.

Aelita hadn't slowed one bit, nearly to the tower.

Odd's arrows hammered home on the tank, but at the last second it fired. The wave of energy slammed into him and shredded him, devirtualizing him even as the tank exploded.

Aelita pulled in her wings and dove through the tower entrance, only feet ahead of the wave of energy.

The tower shook with the impact, but Aelita was safely inside.

Moving to its center, she began to rise to the top.

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Sissi rounded another bend and skidded to a stop again. Ahead of her, something enormous, thick, and smelly was hammering at a strong thick doorway. She couldn't get a good view in the dim light, but she quickly ducked back behind the corner again, breathing fast. The beast thing was _massive_ , and it was roaring and hammering at the door again and again. Beyond the door, she heard Herve and Nikolas's frightened yelps and screams. As she pulled out her map again, she saw that it was a boiler room they'd closed themselves into; the map made the door look thick, and the monster was having a hard time breaking in it looked like.

She glanced back out, pulling out her cell phone and dialing Jeremie. When he answered, she spoke quietly into it.

"Jeremie, it's Sissi. Herve and Nikolas are shut up in a boiler room, and the monster is hammering at it."

Jeremie's voice came back. "Can you tell what it is?"

"No, I can't see in the dark, but it's huge, and it's leaving moss all over, and it stinks something _awful!_ Like rotten plants or something!"

"Alright. Aelita is about to shut down the tower. It should be only another minute."

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Inside the tower, Aelita tapped at the interface at its peak, entering the code to deactivate the tower. "Tower, deactivated."

Outside, the tower's red glow turned blue and serene.

Jeremie pumped a fist. "Yes! Good going Aelita!" He held up the cell phone.

"Sissi, the tower is down. The monster should be stopping now."

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As Sissi watched, the monster stopped mid-swing, pausing as if uncertain. Then it bellowed even louder and angrier than before and began to slam the door again harder than ever. Herve and Nikolas cries started up again, as the heavy door now began to buckle.

"Jeremie…he's not stopping."

"What?"

"The monster. It's not stopping."

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	13. Chapter 12

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12

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"That's not possible." Jeremie heard the stunned surprise in his own voice. "How can it still be going without the connection to XANA? How can that be if it's still…"

He trailed off suddenly. The elevator door opened and a disheveled Odd and Ulrich came up, just in time to see the look of horror on Jeremie's face.

"Sissi, what did you say it was leaving all over?"

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"Moss. Lots of it, lots of wet moss." Sissi winced as the door crumpled further in, realizing suddenly that it was about to give way.

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"Moss. _Mon Dieu_. Moss. That's it." Jeremie slumped in his chair.

Odd and Ulrich looked at each other, then at Jeremie. Odd spoke up first. "What is it?"

"That's why the data stream was all one direction." Jeremie replied, his voice an odd mix of awe, respect, and terror. "XANA wasn't possessing anything. He wasn't trying to take anything over. He was dumping information into a living organism." He looked up at them. "Because it's not a spectre, and it's not a XANA robot, or anything else. It's a living, breathing monster that he's created. And because he was just dumping everything into it but not possessing it, the monster doesn't _need_ XANA. It already has all the information it could ever need. It's its own living being, with motivations and thoughts pre-programmed into its very DNA."

Aelita's voice came from the computer, just as horrified. "You're saying…that XANA biologically engineered a life form…and turned it into a monster with it's own free will…"

"…and now it's been turned it loose on our world. Here in the factory."

A suddenly, enormous, loud roar exploded through hallways of the factory, echoing and making everyone jump.

Sissi's scream came from the Jeremie's phone; Odd was charging up the access ladder toward the upper factory before his girlfriend's words had even finished.

"HELP! It's after me!"

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The boiler door had been almost about to give. Without any other choice, Sissi had scrabbled for something on the floor and had found a hunk of pipe. She'd wheeled back and thrown the metal chunk at the beast, and it had hit home with a wet sick _plop_. The beast had roared and swung around, and those terrible amber eyes had spotted her. Without waiting, she'd taken off running, even as it's loudest roar yet seemed to shake the entire factory as the enormous creature launched into a lumbering running charge after her.

She swung around another corner, running for a staircase. She barely cleared the top when she heard a crash from below and risked a glance back; the thing had swung a thick arm down and crumpled the metal stairs like they were tin foil.

She took off running again; behind her came a thick wet _thud_ ; the monster had leapt from the lower floor to hers, roaring as it came after her again. The sound was terrible, like tigers and elephants and stags and _people_ were being held underwater and screaming as they were drowned, and it echoed like the creature's throat was hanging in tattered strings, making the sound even worse.

Sissi came around another corner, kicking off from the wall for more speed; seconds later, she heard the beast slam into the wall where she'd just been with a sickening _squish_ , before it bellowed angrily again and continued the chase. She spared a look at her map again, turning another corner and grabbing hold of a ladder, climbing it quickly; suddenly the creature was below her, sweeping a huge arm up. Something wet and disgustingly mushy grabbed at her foot; she kicked and her shoe popped off in the creature's grasp. It roared again in disappointment as she climbed quickly out of reach. She came up from the ladder and turned another corner, and suddenly she was back in the huge main room of the factory.

Odd was running toward her from the direction of the elevator, an open hatch behind him. At first he looked relieved to see her, but then his eyes went to terror. "SISSI, LOOK OUT!"

Sissi didn't even stop, ducking with her hands clasped over her head as she ran, feeling a strong gust rattle her as one of the creature's arms swung overhead, and wet moss drippings flecked the back of her neck; it had nearly caught up to her despite everything.

Odd ran past her, a long thick pipe in his hand; she heard the wet thud of it hitting the beast as it roared, its pursuit cut off. She waited until she was a few more yards away, before turning to look back.

It was her first good look at the monster, now that it was in the light. It towered at least eight feet tall. Its shape was humanoid, but only vaguely. It had two broad trunk-like legs ending in flat squished stumps, and two similar pillar-like arms; these ended in three fuzzy thick fingers each. The arms and legs were attached to a huge, hunchback-like body with broad shoulders and a hulking torso. The whole body was coated in thick moss, though long wet strands of it hung down from the torso. And in the center of the torso, a head jutted out; it was draped with long thick strands of moss and weeds, like a strange, wild old man with green baldness on top and overgrown soaked hair hanging down each side of the head, strands hanging down from the front of the face like a twisted wispy yet soaked beard. The amber eyes stared out from the face angrily, and when the creature roared, the strands in front of it's mouth parted, revealing an open black pit that stretched far wider than it should have.

The elevator came back up behind her, and as it opened, Ulrich and Jeremie and Aelita stepped out, all three doing a double take on seeing the monster.

Odd yelled from near the creature toward his friends. "Go back!" He swung the pipe at it again, but this time the beast grabbed it and lifted Odd off the ground by it, holding up to it's face and peering out at him. Odd paled, suddenly getting the feeling he saw recognition in the creature's eyes.

Then it roared and it's mouth opened _disturbingly_ wide, and he realized he was about to be eaten alive.

"YOU PUT MY BOYFRIEND DOWN!" A stone brick suddenly slammed into the creature's head and it recoiled, roaring angrily and dropping Odd, who rolled away quickly. Sissi already had another brick in hand, leaning back and throwing it again; this one caught the creature right where its temple would be, and it recoiled again, tumbling backward roaring in pain and anger.

The others came up behind Sissi, Odd moving in front of her protectively. Ulrich stared at the beast, taking a combat stance, though the look on his face showed he clearly thought it wouldn't get him far. "Alright, so how do we stop this thing?"

Odd shuddered as the beast tried to right itself. "I don't know. But it _knew_ me. It took a good long look at me, and it _recognized_ me, right before he unhinged his jaw like the skeleton from Creepy Freaks and tried to chow down on me!"

"That's what XANA was doing then." Jeremie said, looking on like he still had trouble believing what he was seeing. "He probably marked us in its genetic makeup as either prey or predators, so it would specifically go after us."

"So how do we bring it down?" Sissi asked, her bravado starting to falter a bit as the creature got back to its stumps, shaking it's shaggy head.

"Brute force won't do it." Odd added. "It doesn't like getting hit with things, but I don't think we have anything big enough to actually do lasting damage."

Aelita frowned. "It's a plant right? Mostly?"

"Yeah, it's probably almost entirely moss." Jeremie replied. Then abruptly he looked at Aelita and both hit the conclusion, speaking at the same time.

"Does anyone have a lighter?"

Before anyone could respond, the beast charged again, and they all scattered. It rushed across the room with lumbering strides, slamming with both fists into the spot where they'd been standing. Jeremie and Aelita ran to one side, Ulrich another, as Odd yanked Sissi aside as well. They quickly had the beast surrounded, for all the good it did; it swung around, trying to pick a target, roaring angrily.

"Jeremie, none of us smoke! We're too young for that!" Odd called out. "We won't have a lighter!"

Aelita pulled Jeremie's head down as the creature swung overhead. "Then we'll need to start a fire some other way!" She yelled back. "We need to make sparks, and a torch!"

Ulrich ducked as the creature swung at him. "Odd, you and Sissi find something for a torch! We'll keep him distracted!"

Odd quickly pulled Sissi away from the circle as Jeremie and Aelita and Ulrich spread out around the beast, yelling at it at intervals, trying to keep it confused and unfocused.

Sissi quickly began to dig around in the materials around the sides of the factory room, trying to find anything to use. "It's all stone over here, no metal!"

"Here! I got a rod here!" Odd held it aloft, skinny but long and sturdy. "We need some cloth for it!"

Sissi began to dig again through the stuff, but the only cloth was pinned under huge boxes or stretched over them in huge sheets, far too big to use. "There's nothing good enough here!" She stopped, suddenly looking down and realizing how hard the floor felt; with the shoe she'd lost to the beast, her sock was exposed.

She bit her lip for a second; she really liked these pink socks. But the next minute, she'd yanked her other shoe off and started yanking at her socks.

Odd came up to her with the pole as she worked at getting them off. "What are you doing?"

"Getting cloth." She yanked the last long sock off, leaving herself barefoot, before grabbing the orphaned sneaker and starting to pull the laces out of it. A moment later, she grabbed the end of the pole and was wrapping the socks around it tightly, before entwining the shoelaces over it again and again to tie it on tightly. "Okay, now we need to light it on fire."

From over toward the fight, there came a loud yelping grunt; Jeremie had been a bit slow to duck, and the monster had walloped him over the head thickly, sending him crashing to the floor, unconscious. Aelita screamed Jeremie's name and tried to rush to him, but the beast swung at her and she had to jump back again, yelling to Jeremie again. Ulrich was trying to distract it, but it was moving toward the downed target, reaching out for him.

Suddenly there was a loud female yell from above, and Sissi looked up just in time to see Yumi's black-clad form swinging wildly on one of the chains. The creature looked up at the noise, just in time for Yumi to firmly and wetly plant both booted feet right into it's face with momentum, sending it reeling back away from Jeremie roaring in pain again. Aelita slipped under it's flailing arm as it went down and ran to her boyfriend, trying to pull him up off the ground to carry him away as Yumi landed and Ulrich moved to back her up.

"Come on!" Odd said, grabbing Sissi's attention back, and she tore her eyes from the fight, looking around.

Finally she pointed at a bent metal rod. "Grab that!"

Odd grabbed the rod. "Okay, now what!"

Sissi laid the base torch on the ground, drawing an imaginary line with her foot and motioning to Odd. "It's like science class with Ms. Hertz! Remember when she took the flint and struck it along brick?"

"Yeah, but this thing isn't flint!"

"Doesn't matter, if you swing and scratch it against the concrete enough, it should hopefully make sparks!" She pointed at the line she'd 'drawn'. "Swing the pole along that so you're aiming at the torch, so the sparks shoot that way!"

Odd looked doubtful, but he nodded. "Alright, stand back!" Sissi quickly pulled back, as Odd swung the rod back over his shoulder, then swung it down. It scraped along the concrete, but nothing happened.

"Keep trying!" Sissi urged, looking back at the fight. Aelita had gotten Jeremie's unconscious form away from the fight, and now she was running back toward it, grabbing up a cinderblock as she went.

Odd swung the rod back and brought it down again. This time it left a small scratched streak on the concrete. "Dammit!"

"Again!"

Odd swung it down again. A single spark shot out where the rod scraped the pavement, but it overshot the torch. He didn't wait for Sissi's prompting, swinging again, and again, and again. Each time there was a little fleck of light, a little more sparking. One spark hit the torch and fizzled out suddenly.

Odd didn't let up, swinging again and again, until he was clearly beginning to tire. Finally, he yelled loudly and struck once more; this time, a shower of small sparks shot out, half a dozen landing on the sock and glowing. Sissi quickly got down and steadied herself, blowing gently on the embers, and they began to catch. Another breath, and they suddenly grasped the cloth and the torch took light, the flames quickly spreading around the socks into a good flickering burn.

Sissi picked it up, careful to keep the flames away from herself, holding it out as she yelled. "Ulrich! Yumi! Aelita! We've got it lit!"

The three turned back to look at her; as they did, so too did the beast. It's roaring ceased as it's eyes looked at the flickering flame, and Sissi felt the sudden notion that it's monstrous rampage had crashed into a solid wall of primal instinctual fear. A second later, the beast let out a strange strangled bellow and charged, crashing past the others and bodily knocking Yumi aside as it went, charging away as she hit the floor hard. Ulrich yelled to Yumi and ran to her, as the beast suddenly made an almost impossible leap, bounding from the floor up toward the ledge at the entrance to the factory.

"It's trying to escape!" Aelita yelled. "Don't let it get out! If it gets into the city, we'll never be able to stop it!"

Sissi turned on her heel, rushing past Odd as he called out to her. She charged up the stairs and up to the landing, the long torch flaming in her hands. The monster had hammered through the factory doors above, and she charged out after it into the bright sunlight.

It was only a few yards ahead, lumbering wildly across the bridge. Sissi couldn't take the time to think, blood pounding in her ears and adrenaline taking hold. Without any other choice, she rushed forward, pulled her arm back, and threw the long pole of the torch like a javelin.

The creature had made it halfway to freedom before the fire-wrapped projectile speared its back and turned it into a flailing inferno. It screamed and roared and whined, and Sissi suddenly felt herself being torn back to realization, watching as the creature tried to slap at the spreading flames, only spreading them further, it's terrible roars becoming pained, terrified shrieks and whimpers as the fire consumed it. It collapsed to the pavement, rolling and writhing, and she suddenly had to look away, falling to her knees and clamping her hands over her ears, trying to block out the sounds of the creature dying. She squeezed her eyes closed and just held her ears tight, muting the world around her, trying not to think about what she'd just done.

After what felt like forever, she felt a hand on her shoulder, and another gently moving her left hand away from her ear. She tensed, but opened an eye and glanced, seeing that it was Odd. She slowly pulled her other hand away from her ear; she only heard silence now. No birds, no cars, just a small breeze. Odd was kneeling next to her. He looked past her across the bridge, and winced.

Sissi began to turn her head toward the creature's remains.

Odd spoke up quickly. "Don't look."

Sissi hesitated, but couldn't help it, and she looked.

Then she ran to the side of the bridge, and emptied her lunch and breakfast over the side.

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	14. Chapter 13

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13

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"So…now what do we do?"

The group had convened back in the computer room. Sissi had needed time to compose herself, and was clinging close to Odd, though no one could blame her at all. Jeremie was awake, but slumped in the computer chair where Aelita had put him, and she was tending to him now even as he asked the question. Yumi had a bad bruise on her head, and Ulrich had her propped up against the center hologram console, holding her close.

Yumi groaned. "Man…I was the last one to this party, and I still got messed up." She offered a winced but playful smile. "Next time, let's not spike the punch quite so hard, yeah?"

A few chuckles went around the room, but it was mostly subdued. Aelita smiled a bit, but it was tense.

Sissi looked up from her spot on the floor next to Odd. "Is it always like this? Like…is it always this bad?"

Yumi made a non-committal noise. "On occasion, yeah, but thankfully not too often."

The computer pinged, and Jeremie pulled himself up slightly to check it. "Scan is done." The others all looked up at him as he began to read it off. "Yeah, that's what I thought. The sample of the creature's DNA is almost entirely moss fitted with the trademarks of a XANA program. He rewrote a basic life form and turned it into a behemoth; one that didn't need him around to run itself."

"Almost entirely?" Aelita prompted.

"Yeah. There's humanoid DNA mixed into it. That fits with what I expected."

"But how did it get human DNA?"

Jeremie shrugged. "I can tell you at least where the moss came from. It's a local breed; it grew right here in the factory. According to the building scans, it was in the old smelting room, the one with the broken catwalk."

Odd looked up. "Hang on. That's the room where…"

He paused, looking at Sissi, and she got it too. "That's where I fell."

Odd nodded, looking up at Jeremie. "That's how it got human DNA. Sissi cut her foot when she ran back there. I'll bet the moss was already forming below, and a couple drops of blood landed in it."

Aelita put a hand on her chin. "Actually, I think that changes everything." She looked at Jeremie. "I don't think XANA intended to make that monster."

Her boyfriend looked confused. "Huh?"

"Think about it. What could do more damage to the factory? One giant bog beast thing, or a sentient moss overtaking the entire inside, choking out all the machinery?" Aelita turned to Sissi. "I'll bet Sissi's blood messed with the intended design."

Jeremie sat up a bit straighter. "So you're saying he wanted a real life version of the Marabounta, but instead…"

Odd chimed in. "Instead, he got the Thing From The Black Lagoon. Which almost did the job anyways."

"So it's my fault again…" Sissi's voice was quiet as she felt the pang of regret again.

But Aelita quickly spoke up. "No, actually it's kind of the opposite. If your blood hadn't landed in that thing, we could have been dealing with something a lot worse that we might not have been able to stop. That monster was a handful, but as you proved, at least we could actually beat it."

Sissi shuddered; she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to forget the smell or the sight of it's charred, smoldering husk.

Jeremie cleared his throat. "At any rate, we've got a decision to make now. A big one." Everyone looked up to him as he pulled himself up straighter again. "Herve and Nikolas are still trapped in the old boiler room downstairs, and with the door smashed like that, we can't really let them out of it easily. Plus, they saw the beast. In addition," He tapped a few keys on the computer screen, and a camera view from upstairs turned on, showing that a few police cars and a fire engine had pulled up at the far end of the bridge, examining the black smoking lump that had been the creature. "The smoke signals it sent up got a lot of attention."

The others went silent, and slowly they all looked to Sissi. She looked confused for a moment, then it sunk in.

"You have to do a Return to the Past."

"Yes." Jeremie replied. "We're going to have to undo all of this, and there's no way to do it without that."

Aelita looked to Sissi, biting her lip, trying to think of what to say.

But it was Ulrich who got there first.

"Sissi."

She looked up at him. "Yeah?"

"You've seen now the kinds of things we deal with. It's not always this bad, but it's not the first time we've all gotten slammed around by something and nearly died. And it's not the first time we've witnessed something really terrible before. I can absolutely imagine what's going on in your head right now; we all can, because we've all been there." He took a breath. "So, you've got a choice to make here."

Yumi continued. "The only way to not have you included in the time wipe is for you to virtualize on Lyoko at least once. Once you've done that, you'll keep your memory whenever we have to go back. But you'll also be marked as one of us, and thus one of XANA's enemies."

"If you choose to not do that, then we'll activate the Return to the Past from here." Aelita said. "You won't remember anything from the last couple days, and it will be like it never happened. You won't remember anything about the factory, or Lyoko, or any of it." Her expression softened. "And you won't remember the moss beast and what you had to do to stop it.

Jeremie chimed in now. "You'll still be with Odd. We'll still be your friends. You'll still remember that."

Odd turned to look at her, and she met his eyes. When he spoke, he was quiet.

"I'm…sorry for all of this. When I started this, when I wanted to tell you about it all, I didn't really think it out. It's all been so normal for us for so long that I forgot how much of a change it would be. And now you've had to both live that, and fight in it for your own survival." He shook his head. "It's not what I wanted to happen. I didn't want you in danger. But I guess in hindsight, I was being a naïve fool about it." He took her hands in his, and squeezed them. "So if you want to go back, and if you want to forget all of this, and go back to a normal life, I'll understand." He smiled. "And it won't change me loving you one bit."

Sissi felt herself tearing up as she looked at Odd. She turned, looking at each of her friends in turn, marveling again that she had the chance to think of them that way. She thought about everything that had happened; all the stress, all the pain, all the terror, all the wonder, all the change, and then thought about the life she wanted to have.

And then she made her decision.

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	15. Chapter 14

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14

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"So, did you want to do anything today?"

"Mmm?"

"I asked if you wanted to do anything?"

Sissi offered a small sound of contentment as she snuggled against her boyfriend a bit tighter. "I'm alright with this for now."

Next to her, Odd Della Robbia responded with a gentle squeeze of his girlfriend's hand and a slight tightening of the embrace he had her wrapped in. The two were laying back on Odd's bed in the room he shared with Ulrich in the Kadic dormitories.

It was the same as it had been the first time. Nothing had changed. There was no sign of anything being any different. It was like the past two days hadn't even happened.

Because they hadn't.

Sissi turned on her side and frowned, thinking. "Hey, Odd?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think I made the right choice?"

Odd looked down at her, kissing the top of her head.

"Only you could have made it."

She smiled a bit, looking up at her boyfriend, before leaning in and kissing his lips lovingly. He held her close and returned it with gentle care.

After a few moments, they separated again and she lay back on his chest.

"Well, I guess there's one upside to the whole time travel thing," Sissi mused. "At least I won't have to replace all the shoes I lost in the last few days."

Odd kept silent. After a moment, Sissi pushed up to look down at him.

"Is something wrong?"

He looked up at her, and abruptly his face broke into a goofy grin.

"I'm curious. Do you really prefer being the 'big spoon'? Or is that just when you're nuzzling up to Aelita?"

"OOODD!"

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~fin~

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	16. Outroduction

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Author's Note (A/N): Well, we've come to the end! Of this story at least!

"I'd like to thank those of you who have come through this little experimental jaunt into uncharted territory with me. I'd also like to thank WeaponFanfic again for letting me play in the world he jumpstarted with "An Odd Couple".

With all of that said...I'm not quite done yet!

In fact, I've already begun a little work on the sequel, and I have a few ideas for several more sequel stories besides that one. I don't have a timetable on these, since you can't rush the process; I'd rather be satisfied with the story before beginning to put it up. At least one person has already reached out with a few thoughts and ideas, and I have a few myself. There's even been a little input from another Lyoko fanfiction author of some repute, all the way from France...

Between now and then though, I hope you all remain in good health and good standing, and that you'll support the various communities keeping interest in Code Lyoko alive online!

Thank you for your time.

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